Who's Afraid of Roderich Edelstein
by Cyrelia J
Summary: Kink Meme de-anon. "And thus the three princes, bound together by blood and sin set about to conquer the world, unaware of how deep into the darkness their journey would take them." If the sins of men are great, those of gods are greater still. A story of wanting what one can never have- and the tragedy it creates. Germany/Austria/Prussia et al. WWII/Crusades/Present.
1. Do I Dare Disturb?

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or any of its characters. I'm also not making any money off of this.

Note: This was a kink meme de-anon that I thought would benefit heavily from a beta and some more rewrite for clarity so it will be continued off meme. On that note much thanks to my initial beta doomy_slasher on lj and my current beta, Jazz E. Roislin. Massive amounts of characters appearing and pairings. Warnings for very strong language. Some idealogical unpleasantness, angst, violence, homophobia and gender issues. C&C is always welcome

Who's Afraid of Roderich Edelstein

By Cyrelia J

1:

"Do I Dare Disturb?"

_**Once upon a time there were three handsome princes. The first two were brothers, strong and fair. They were known far and wide for their fighting prowess and bravery. And yet they harbored a dark secret between them, for the elder desired the younger as he never should. **_

Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem

City Outskirts

March, 1191

They had heard that Leopold was coming to relieve their soldiers until France and England arrived. Gilbert Beilschmidt had heard from Albert that God was sending them to aid in a holy crusade against the infidels holding the city. Friends since Albert was a child, the knight, now an old man, lies on a straw cot breathing heavily the wound in his side still fresh from the skirmish earlier in the week. Gilbert continues to carefully place the leeches so they can purge the bad blood a frown on his childlike face. _Is this my fate then, Ludwig? To age and die like this now that you've sent me away?_

"Idiot," he says, his voice a touch more ragged than it should be. "I told you that you were getting too old." Gilbert stares at the gray of the man's hair and the worn wrinkles of his face and looks back down not sure what about cold feeling in his chest.

It occurs to him as he works that fifty years isn't a terribly long time to live. His expression is grim as he sets the bucket aside.

As if sensing the change in mood, Albert replies with a confidence to mirror Gilbert's.

"Too old? Pfah! Wait til this heals, Gil. I'll still run circles around you in the practice yard. You've probably gotten soft spending all your time sparring with Ludwig." Gilbert tenses briefly at the mention of his brother's name, but merely tosses his head.

"Hah! You're one to talk. I heard some kid did this to you with a practice sword." Albert splutters so help him if he keeps that attitude up when Leopold arrives. He ignores the protest. Rosary in hand he says a prayer. Gilbert's eyes are fixated on the small child's hands, wondering what they'll look like with wrinkles and scars and if Ludwig truly means for him to...

_Wait, I should know that name._

"Leopold?" he scoffs putting the expensive beads back into the leather pouch at his side. He tries hard to recall why it sounds so close to him. He continues to consider the question as he moves to the bedside of a man with an infected gash in his leg. Maggots are used this time to eat the dead flesh and help him heal. Sometimes Gilbert watches them crawl over his own skin and ponders how the creatures view him. "What kind of name is that for a king?" Gilbert presses combatively. There's a thought that tickles the edge of his consciousness. "What banner does he serve beside the Lord's? Is he strong like Richard or clever like Phillip?" _Is he...?_

The old man laughs and shakes his head.

"The way you talk, Gil, it's no wonder they sent us both out here. 'Course I made it worth it. The duchess never saw that one coming. You must've finally tried Henry's last nerve." Gilbert pauses in his ministrations to swat his other patient's hands away. He doesn't answer the comment immediately. After all, that's not the only reason they sent him out here. He won't trouble his old friend however and instead resumes the treatment. He forces a cocksure grin back onto his face and throws his response over his shoulder.

"Ha! Those stupid nobles always hanging around court finally realized my awesome skills would be far more useful here on the front lines fighting for God and avenging our king." Gilbert focuses again on the maggots. He tries to forget his brother, his old friend, aging, dying...

* * *

"_What do you mean you don't need me?" he asked looking at Ludwig, confusion on his face. He turned on the large bed so they faced each other. Ludwig sighed and looked at him determined to stand up to his older brother. His child's face was hard as he stood on the wooden stool at the side of the bed._

"_I mean that you have your own room, Gil. I mean that... that you know there's always been talking, but since the king passed it's... it's worse. He used to keep them quiet but with Henry it's..." He looked away after all. _

_Gilbert sat up kicking his legs over the side of the bed. When he sat and, his brother stood on the stool they were at the same height. His expression was troubled and as he spoke his voice held only a child's earnest bewilderment. _

"_But if I'm not here, Ludi, who'll keep the monsters away?" Who'll protect you? He wanted to ask. He was the only one who could look out for his younger brother. He was the only one his brother could cling to when he was afraid. Their other brothers never understood the bond between them and if the stupid humans couldn't either then who cared? Gilbert didn't understand why after so long Ludwig didn't want to sleep with him anymore. Could it be that…_

"_I have this now," Ludwig said holding up the dark cross with a small smile. The onyx piece glinted faintly in the moonlight and Gilbert seized it, holding it in his shaking hand, looking down as if it were the most hated thing he ever beheld. He looked up into those blue eyes even as his baby brother dug the knife in further with his damn innocent "reassurance"._

"_Roderich gave it to me, remember?" he said smiling, always smiling. Ludwig only used to smile for him. Ludwig used to love him best of all their brothers. His grip on the cross tightened, the sharp corners digging into his small hand as he looked into his brother's eyes, guileless, trusting, and forced himself to release the charm lest he break it or throw it out the window._

"_Yeah... I remember," he replied, his voice thick. His legs kicked helplessly against the wooden sideboard of the bed as he remember Ludwig telling him about the cousin of theirs who'd become Austria. "Perfect Roderich right? The one who ascended when Barbarosa cut off Jo- Bavaria's left hand." He ignored the frown on Ludwig's face. He hadn't been there to redress the hand that never seemed to stop bleeding until it finally rotted off when the king named the stupid margrave an independent duchy. Gilbert had never before heard their eldest brother scream like that, like he was being murdered over and over, and it still kept him up some nights like the cry of a phantom spirit._

"_It grew back, Gil," Ludwig said softly taking his hands. "He told me it doesn't hurt anymore and that wasn't Roderich's fault. He was called just like the rest of us were. Like you will be someday. Maybe... maybe if we weren't together so much you-"_

"_Don't say that!" Gilbert interrupted, pulling his hands back violently. His heart felt about to pound out of his chest and he shoved his brother back, his eyes wide as he watched him totter, reach out towards him, and then fall backwards. Gilbert grabbed for him, his hands reaching for any part that he could touch, only to catch around the cross hanging from its silver chain. The delicate loops held for just a fraction of a second before they snapped, and like quicksilver he felt Ludwig slip through his fingers and fall backwards. Their eyes met in that instant, as he held the cross in his hand, and he felt as if he couldn't breathe at the look of betrayal in his brother's eyes._

_Ludwig crashed to the floor with a pained cry, landing on his shoulder, and Gilbert was at his side before he could think, kneeling down in concern. _

"_Ludi?' Even knowing they couldn't die, he worried. It was he who sat by Ludwig's bedside changing the cloth on his forehead two hundred years ago when the fever gripped him and they all thought he'd die. Even when Bavaria had scoffed and said that he needed to leave him to ascend with dignity like a man with none to bear witness Gilbert never left his side, terrified that he truly would die, begging any of their brothers to give him the kiss of life; they all refused. Gilbert still vowed that someday he'd get every last one of the callous jerks back. He didn't care that old man Germania had touched them all and blessed them before he passed, Gilbert believed in nothing but God's power and his own. Filthy false idol worshippers, how dare they put their faith in one who'd started out as a human same as they had? _

"_Ludi are you?.."_

_He never forgot the boy who had drowned in the well when they truly were children because of the gales from the gathering storm. and only that one day had Gilbert volunteered to fetch the water because he was such an awesome older brother to do all of Ludwig's chores as a birthday present… and sometimes even now when he awoke in the middle of the night he found himself staring at his brother's lips to reassure himself they weren't blue, and sometimes he put his ear to his brother's chest to make sure the eternal heart was truly still beating, and sometimes he'd hold the polished looking glass underneath his brother's nose to make sure he was still breathing because Ludwig was the only one who hadn't written him off and still believed in him and until that wretched Austria had come along with his harp and his falcons, and he was all that Ludwig ever wanted to talk about when Gilbert was supposed to be the only one that he loved and-_

"_Why?" Those were the first words his brother had spoken, getting to his knees, shoving at Gilbert's hands. He stared at the ground as if to hide his tears, refusing to look up and when Gilbert reached out, cross in hand he slapped it away, fingers digging into the woven rug beneath him. "Why!? Why do you have to ruin things?!" His voice was sharp, with a child's shrill anguish and Gilbert found his mouth opening and shutting with a million damn false starts as Ludwig shoved him back, head still down as he screamed "Why can't you ever let me have anything?! You always take everything I love and break it!" His voice caught and Gilbert couldn't help but think of the girl who liked Ludwig whose hair he used to pull, who he used to call names until she stopped talking to them. He thought of the damn dog that Ludwig used to love who hated him until it finally learned to be afraid of them both and Ludwig had come to him in tears, his beloved brother who he comforted, told him it would be okay as they lay in the small bed. _

_Two years separated them in body, and for reasons they'd never understood there were five between himself and the next. But that was the will of God, him and Ludwig together against the world, even if his brother was the Holy Roman Empire, as Barbarosa had taken to calling it, even if Gilbert was only still alive because his brother was the only one willing to breathe the very essence of the German people into his body and give him life, and even though he hated the child's body as his brother did he'd do any damn thing to be with him so why was Ludwig pushing him away, why didn't Ludwig understand that-_

"_Get out." _

_Gilbert blinked and looked at him as if he couldn't understand. He still held the cross, gripping it tight until it hurt and he thought that he'd cut himself. He didn't know how to say he was sorry and he didn't know how to apologize for screwing up because Ludwig was the one person he never needed to apologize to and-_

"_Get out!" Ludwig screamed again as he stood up and stormed over to the door._

"_B-but Ludi you… we… look I didn't mean it, I mean it's just a stupid-"_

"_Go away!" And now Gilbert knew he was crying and he didn't know what to do but his room was dark and cold and he couldn't mean anymore than that. _Please, please don't say that. It's just a stupid necklace from a stupid jerk who isn't me. "_I can't do this anymore, Gil. I can't keep doing this and you can't keep clinging to me-"_

"_You can't," he choked out getting to his feet, the cold gripping him. "You can't banish me Ludi, you know without you I'll-"_

"_Get old and die," Ludwig finished looking away the metal ring of the door clutched in his small hand. _

"_But you never should've lived this long and you know it. Roderich says that-"_

"_I'll leave," Gilbert said, an odd expression on his face as his bare feet shuffled to the door. He felt sick, he felt as if he were dying, like he'd fucking throw up but he supposed that must be what dying felt like. Christ, he was tired and he didn't want to hear anymore about the one who'd turned his brother against him. He couldn't think but maybe in the morning when the shadows and the darkness weren't closing around his heart he could make Ludwig change his mind but he wasn't going to beg like some weakling. He wasn't going to say sorry and he wasn't going to cry. Not in front of Ludwig; never in front of Ludwig._

* * *

He'd been sent along with the merchants from Lübeck the next day and he's been chafing ever since he got here, wanting to fight. He isn't a damn priest like these men determined to set up a field hospital here. He's a warrior even if they refuse to acknowledge it and so help him if he can do one thing right it'll be to finish what Barbarosa started in the name of God. He looks down at his child's hands once again with a sigh as he rinses them in a bucket of tepid water.

"_Your time will come, brother," _Ludwig had said to him that morning, taking his hands and pressing their mouths softly together, breathing life back into him one more time in front of God and everyone else. Keeping that fleeting fond memory close, the short sword that he set down by the open tent flap calls to him and he takes it up with a cocky grin.

"Your stance has improved," his old friend says as he looks over. "And Leopold leads the great Kingdom of Austria so you'd better hold your tongue. They're probably running out of places to send you." Austria. Oh he definitely knows that name. Great kingdom? He'll see it burn like Sodom. He'll bury that kid's face in the dirt and end him for taking his brother away.

"Pfah! I bet I could lick some loser named Leopold in a fight." He jabs at an invisible foe. "If they'd let me out there I'd take on a hundred infidels! A thousand!" He ignores the indulgent chuckle as he turns and slashes. But they don't know. They have no idea the ruin he'll bring when he has the power. All of them, every last one of them especially that Austria, will fall before him. "If they'd let me at Saladin I'd cut him like this!" He turns again and lets out a rather manly cry of surprise- Gilbert never screams like a girl- when his strike is caught by the friar's ladle and the thin soup spills out onto the ground.

A cry goes up from those who'd seen and flushing, Gilbert beats a steady retreat out of the tent before Friar Peter can take the ladle to his backside. They'll take it out of his rations later but right now, his rounds finished, he runs through the sand twirling the short blade as if he were the greatest hero ever crowned. His brown hair and tanned skin blend in almost seamlessly with the desert around him. The sun is warm even as the chill ocean air hits him and he follows the breeze closer to the coast careful to remain behind their lines. If the reports are correct then King Leopold's ship should be arriving sometime today. He grins wide as he imagines the ships pulling onto the beach in the distance and the fanfare that the trumpets will surely provide. He's always loved the brass. Now those are far more worthy instruments than some girly harp.

He sits and waits in the dunes and low lying brush, imagining the others in the encampment falling all over themselves to welcome even the lowliest of lackeys as they disembark. Gilbert stretches, knowing it could be hours before Leopold himself makes an appearance but he's excited nonetheless. He wonders if the man would reject his challenge if he threw the gauntlet down. Gilbert sighs, laying back and watching the clouds floating in the clear sky. His pupils dance faintly as he imagines cutting down that miserable Austria and his stupid boss. And then it'll be him leading the armies, him leading the charge against the heathens holding the holy city and-

He shuts his eyes and behind them he sees his brother's serious countenance staring back at him, those blue eyes cold, disapproving but oh for him behind that they've always held affection and admiration that makes Gilbert feel as if he could do anything. He sees Ludwig's adorable little face screwed up and red as if he's standing right there about to protest such a reckless action. He smiles thinking of how cute his little brother is when he's embarrassed and angry and he can't help but think of how strange it will be to be a man while Ludwig is still a child.

Gilbert feels the coolness of a shadow over him suddenly and is on his feet in an instant, eyes open to take in the silhouette on the sand. That heathen with the turban- kefi-something he thought someone had called it once- sometimes creeps around their encampment at night and he's taken to sleeping with one eye open because of it. He pirouettes quickly, whirling to face the intruder, sword coming to rest at her throat- Her? Eyes wide, he almost drops it as he steps back, face scarlet. The thought of being so familiar with a woman both excites and terrifies him. Albert likes to bandy about a lot of bawdy tripe but he'd never paid much mind to it. He swallows and stares, not even realizing how lost he is as he looks at her.

_**The third prince was scorned for he was neither powerful nor a strong fighter. But he held in his possession a magic which transformed him into a beautiful princess. Even his most hated enemies fell madly and hopelessly in love; powerless before him.**_

He watches the waves crashing against the rocks from where they sit close to the shore. It's still warmer than it would be if he were at home, but he's managed not to think of home as often as he had been. He looks over out of the corner of his eye to where she sits next to him with her legs folded artfully underneath her and he can see the leather of her boots peeking out coyly from beneath her dark blue skirts. She looks up from the book she's reading, seemingly at the same moment, with that perpetually annoyed expression on her face.

"You keep looking at me," she says to him with a frown as she quickly looks down and readjusts the heavy skirts. The breeze from the ocean musses her hair- her unbound hair- and Gilbert scribbles a hasty note about that as well in case some day his memory fails so he can remember that about her as well. She hasn't changed that from the day they first met; she hasn't changed anything but her shoes.

* * *

_She hardly looked any older than him as she stood there nervously staring at the weapon in his hand. The first thing he noticed about her was her eyes. They were the most brilliant violet that he'd ever seen, and he swore he could see the mountains of Carinthia when he looked into them. The dress she wore was thoroughly impractical for the area, long skirts and sleeves blowing in the desert wind. She tucked an errant strand of long brown hair behind her ear as she made a study of him as well. He'd straightened up automatically making sure that she was suitably impressed; and of course she had been._

_He couldn't believe that her hair was uncovered, thick auburn ringlets framed her face, the rest of it pulled back and pinned up. He'd never seen the likes before; even the noble women of the court didn't go about exposing themselves in such a provocative manner- except perhaps in France. Her skin was pale like his, but polished and creamy like a porcelain doll's, and he forced his traitorous gaze back to her face not even daring to imagine the under bodice that lay beneath the blue surcoat and shapeless kirtle. He quashed that sinful though immediately, angry with himself and angry with her for causing it. He'd said fifty Hail Mary's that night._

"_Are you crazy?!" he yelled as he lowered the sword. "What are you doing wandering around out here? Don't you know it's dangerous, you idiot?!" She glared at him, those eyes glittering like amethyst and just as hard; her small mouth, beauty mark dotting the corner, turned downward in displeasure._

"_I'm sorry I find it hard to understand the barking of dog." Her voice wasn't as high pitched as he would've thought but it was just as arrogant. She drew herself up but still managed to stand no taller than him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm supposed to be with his highness." She stormed past him headed further into the desert._

"_Hey! That's the wrong way, stupid!" he called running after her. She seemed disinclined to stop and he reluctantly grabbed her hand. Her palm was warm and soft- he'd always remember what it felt like to hold her hand- and as soon as she stopped he let go. She looked away with a harsh breath, crossing her arms._

"_Well… anywhere away from a rude little child such as yourself is better than here." _

_He glared annoyed that a woman would dare talk to him like that. Silly noblewoman- what was she even doing here?_

"_Fine, get yourself lost then. See if I care!" He huffed and started to walk away, but couldn't make himself go more than a few steps. Even if she was a complete harpy he couldn't just leave a woman alone in the desert, especially during a time of war. What sort of knight would he be then? Gilbert swore to himself that when he was a powerful nation he'd never humble himself like this again. She seemed bound and determined to go the wrong way as he sighed and went back to her. "Alright, alright look." He felt almost pained as he forced out the rest in a halfway civil tone. "I'll take you back to the encampment, m-milady." _

_She looked at him as if she hadn't expected any differently._

"_Thank you, good sir." She answered demurely, still managing to sound condescending. She offered him a hand, lifting the heavy skirts with the other to walk easier through the sand. The pointed shoes were likewise a thoroughly ridiculous indulgence. "If you will be so kind…" He took her hand and looked away quickly, before he could catch sight of her ankles and sin even further. _

"_Ttch. You really oughta be more careful." He pulled her along and didn't reply when he heard her hiss at him to slow down. Even so, he lessened his strides to match her own._

"_It's dangerous here, y'know? This ain't a little royal ball." Again he wonders what she's doing here. This kind of woman should at least have someone with her to keep her safe._

"_It's nothing I wasn't born to handle," she had said cryptically, and before he could ask her what on earth she meant by that, she tripped. _

_They both ended up rolling down the dune, and Gilbert had just barely managed to hold back the string of curses as they landed in a tangle at the bottom. Stupid clumsy girl! He spit sand out of his mouth and stood back up. He was sore as he turned around and was about to yell when he saw her pushing herself to her knees with a quiet dignity, as if she'd done so a thousand times before. He was uncharacteristically silent as he helped her back to her feet._

* * *

He's written down everything, every day since Bavaria "died". The volumes are housed at the castle with Ludwig and he only hopes that if he's to die before ascending that his younger brother will forgive him enough to let him read them again before that time comes. But Ludwig always forgives him eventually so... He doesn't look up as he writes, the quill gliding over the rough pages of the book.

"Don't be stupid, why on earth would anyone want to stare at you all day?" He doesn't know why he can't help but goad her; the words come out of his mouth thoughtlessly, yet offended as she always seems, she's never left. He still doesn't know her name, but it somehow seems unnecessary. She doesn't know his either; she's never asked.

"Boorish pig," she murmurs in her usual haughty voice turning another page in the novel she's reading.

"I can't believe that stupid coward Austria has yet to show his face," Gilbert says as he continues to dash off more of his private thoughts. "I guess what they say is true about his weakness in battle. Wouldn't surprise me if he's hiding out under Leopold's bedroll in the tent." He laughs at his own joke and as he writes he doesn't see the way she stiffens and crinkles the costly pages beneath her hands.

"Only ignorant fools speak with such familiarity of strangers." She answers at last in a clipped voice and shuts her book, turning as if to leave. Gilbert looks over and realizes he holds her wrist before she can rise and he silently vows to do penance this evening.

"Hey, relax! I wasn't trying to offend you or nothin'... You'd think you liked the guy or something the way you talk about him." He grumbles, setting the diary down between them and looking at the ground awkwardly as if he doesn't quite know how to let go or go further.

She looks down at where he holds her wrist and speaks softly, sadly.

"I hate him," she says with a quiet condemnation and pulls away. "The same as you do." Because he told her how Austria ruined his life and she listened so intently, so anguished when he told her how he was going to cut him down and kill him that he felt as if she'd taken his sadness as her own. He picks the book back up and dusts if off, dipping the quill back in the inkwell and making a few curious notes as she continues. "He ruined my life... that man..." She trails off and toys with the hem of her skirt in a nervous gesture that he doesn't see. _So he hurt her too, huh? Bastard. Forgive me lord but with him... I just can't forgive him._

He looks over and realizes she's speaking again. His paused quill is still pressed to write, quickly forming a dark blot on the page.

"You know... one time I saw the most fascinating thing..." She looks out over the water and it seems as if today's conversation won't be filled with nearly as much levity as usual: not that there had been much on the day that she had proclaimed she would only marry a man with blonde hair and blue eyes. "I guess you wouldn't find it all that interesting. There was a boy that I knew. He wasn't terribly strong or brave and one day I saw him fall down into a puddle in the middle of the street. He did that a lot... he was rather clumsy." Gilbert is about to laugh at the imbecile she must be describing but stops when she leans over and rests her head on his shoulder and all at once his heart starts racing. When she continues on, she speaks so softly that if her lips weren't almost at his ear he wouldn't hear her over the roar of the sea. "And he cried. He cried because he was clumsy and weak and because it was his favorite outfit. And he cried until a man came along and told him to get up and stop crying because he was a man, wasn't he, and men don't cry."

And Gilbert opens his mouth to speak. To say "Of course that's how it is and that's how it's supposed to be" and she puts a hand over his mouth, her nails digging into the side of his face and he's about to protest when he feels the wetness on his collar and remains silent because she can't be crying if he doesn't acknowledge her tears.

"And would you know... when I fell over in that same spot... when I sat there soaking wet and needing someone to help me up... because once... just once it would be nice to..." He can feel her hand shaking and God he doesn't want to have to say anything. And yet when she speaks next, when she says: "He picked me up. He picked me up and asked me if I was alright and wiped the tears from my eyes." Her eyes are clear and her hands are steady and he wonders if he hadn't imagined it all. "As if it was okay to be weak. As if he didn't expect me to be strong..." She sighs. "But I would like to fight. I want to stand up there with Leopold when Richard and Phillip arrive and we break Saladin's hold on the holy lands."

He's quiet for a long while, unusual for him as he thinks of the man he's never met, the brother he's been banished from, and the woman he holds. He thinks of that little weasel lying ruined in the puddle and he can't help the sinful thoughts. _Vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord... _He shakes his head as he watches the sun trying to break through the clouds of the overcast sky. The book lays open on his lip and unbeknownst to him she's reading over it even as he snorts and declares,

"You? If you can even hold a sword I'd be surprised. And I don't know how you expect to fight without..." He looks down and sees her reading and she answers him without her eyes ever leaving the page.

"Christ, our savior was the most valiant crusader ever to live without ever taking up arms... do you really think that I'm-"

"D-don't read that!" he exclaims as he holds it tightly to his chest and she pulls back red faced and angry, her violet eyes flashing as they're wont to do before she hauls off and slaps him, and she looks away.

"As if I would ever want to read the words of a sophomoric dullard like yourself!" She takes her book and makes as if to leave but instead remains seated, looking anywhere but at him as Gilbert looks over to where the fighting is- to where he should be, not sitting with some stupid woman- and wonders just what the hell he's doing. He's in a child's body and even if he weren't she's a... No... no she can't be the child she looks because her eyes are just like Ludwig's, they don't age. And she knows Austria. _She knows him somehow and she acts just like us so if- What if Austria'd breathed his life into her? What if that stupid loser had kissed her and-_

He kisses her. He's never kissed anyone but Ludwig before and he's not sure that he really knows how a man and a woman are supposed to kiss, and he feels her hands clutching at his shoulders but she doesn't push him off. He hears her squeak and feels her dig at him and his eyes go wide when he hears her keep doing it and her face is red right now and she's gasping and opens her mouth and so does he and-

She goes still. Perfectly still as if petrified and he's not quite sure what happened, only that she tastes so familiar as if he should know her and she's shoving at him violently looking confused and terrified and he's calling after her even as she runs from him as if the devil himself were chasing her and somehow he knows he's committed a grievous sin.

He says the rosary that night until the iron cross clutched tightly between his fingers makes them bleed.

_**But it wasn't just his enemies who fell beneath the spell; it was his own blood who also desired him in the most forbidden of sins. Even as the second prince lay mortally wounded in battle he never knew that his greatest love and his greatest foe were one in the same.**_

He never thought dying would hurt so much. And he's seen men die. He's seen them bleed out. He's seen his own brothers die before him and revive and yet it's always such a peaceful ascension for them that he knows he has to be dying for real as he falls to his knees with an arrow through his heart. And even as they press on to finish retaking the city and the sun sinks down into the sea and he can't lift his head to watch the stars dot the night sky he prays. Gilbert's prayed for a lot of things, but even as he feels his body light and lifeless he prays to continue living. Because he can't die alone in the sand with the rest of the bodies as if he were nobody. He's not nobody. _I'm me. I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt and I want to live! Don't do this to me, God! Don't abandon me! I've never abandoned you so please don't let me die. I'm sorry. For everything I've ever done wrong I'm so damn sorry and I'll never sin again and I'm just-_

"I'm sorry." He hears the voice that isn't his and as he gasps at the decay-stained air as if it is poison itself he feels soft hands on his face and sees in the darkness the silhouette of a slender figure with eyes as violet now as thy had been that first time. "Sleep, child sleep..." He hears the voice singing and yet it's not a woman's voice that sings to him but a boy's... almost like his own. He blinks and tries to focus but instead finds soft familiar hands over his eyes as the darkness comes and it's cold and warm all at once. "The father takes care of the sheep. The mother shakes the tree." The familiar words are comforting, and he thinks as arms close around him that perhaps dying isn't so bad if it's like this. "There falls down a dream." And yet as he closes his eyes and prepares to meet the parents he left behind hundreds of years ago in death and that old man Germania who gifted and cursed them all he realizes that his heart has started beating again and there's a gasp and a hitch in that voice that sings a final, "sleep, child sleep..."

And as he hears the voice beginning fade away, his eyes suddenly open wide and blink away the now snow white strands falling across his face, and he realizes that he has, in fact, ascended. His time has come.

Notes:

Acre during this time was under siege during the third crusade. The Teutonic Knights were founded at this time at a field hospital- the one where Gilbert is now.

Leopold V was the duke of Austria during the time of the Third crusade. After the siege was won, Leopold's flag was raised along with Phillip's and Richard's. Richard removed Leopold's flag however and Leopold, furious left for home.

Richard I and Phillip II were the kings of England and France respectively during this time period.

Lübeck was an imperial city in what was the Holy Roman Empire. Merchants from Lübeck and Bremen were the ones to travel to Acre and set up the field hospital which eventually created the Teutonic Knights.

Otto I was the first king of what would later be known as the Holy Roman Empire. In this story Germany and HRE are one in the same but this is a bit of my own headcannon on how they became nations.

Barbarossa "Red Beard" in italian AKA Frederick I was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1155-1190

Saladin AKA Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb was proclaimed Sultan of Egypt and Syria and led the muslim resistance against the crusaders from the 3rd crusade.


	2. Toy Soldiers

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or any of its characters. I'm also not making any money off of this.

Note: Thank you everyone for reading and commenting! Now we're really starting to get into the meat of the story. I think the warning at the beginning covered everything. I really look forward to your feedback :)

2

_I'm not afraid to take a stand  
Everybody come take my hand  
We'll walk this road together, through the storm  
Whatever weather, cold or warm  
Just let you know that, you're not alone  
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road  
-Eminem Not Afraid  
_

Berlin, Germany  
Reich Chancellory  
March 1942

Austria stares at the 1879 revolver on the ornately carved coffee table with a faint look of revulsion.  
"I have always loathed those things," he says softly giving the weapon a disdainful look. He shifts on the red velvet cushions of the sofa trying to get comfortable. He makes no move to touch the hateful weapon.  
"Yeah, I know." Prussia slides it forward across the table and looks at him as if needing to confirm something. "Take it." _Of course you'd remember that. Somehow you've never forgotten anything about me..._ Silently contemplative, Austria is finally able to force himself to be still and ignore the painful impulses of his nerves; he tries to focus on the victrola playing Haydn in the background. There's a vial of clear nirvana on the nightstand in the bedroom that they're waiting for him to turn to in desperation. He refuses to so much as touch it. Surely they know he's lived through worse than this in the past without the filthy opiates.

He hears Prussia babbling- no, not babbling he would say 'cause only women babble- and wonders when he stopped being able to bear the silence of speechlessness. "'Course knowing you… you'll probably end up shooting Tirol clean off, right?" Prussia laughs quickly, nervously, as if he's expecting something otherworldly and awful to happen. He hasn't started pacing yet, but that usually follows soon enough. He paced plenty in the last war. Austria blinks at him. The words are slow to filter into his mind and he almost misses Prussia's vulgar comment entirely while he forces himself to reach for the gun. He stops his hand as he's about to bring his finger up to bite; somehow it's always been more satisfying than a rolled cloth. _Pull it together. Are you really as weak as they all say you are?_

Prussia is still 'not babbling'. "Hey, it's just a little insurance, right? They're all a bunch of perverts around here and a little sissy girl with an ass like yours doesn't need-" and on and on as if he hasn't had a proper conversation in months. Austria once again lets the insult slide and can't help but wonder what the other's reaction would be if he knew just how close to home his words hit. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath forcing those thoughts from his mind, compartmentalizing them for when he's alone. What's one more secret, after all? Prussia and Germany both need to focus. They don't need to know what goes on anywhere but the battlefield.

Austria brings a bonbon to his mouth thoughtfully and considers the last time that Prussia was here. _It **has** been awhile, hasn't it?_ The last time he stopped by he wasn't quite so agitated but it's been difficult to keep track of time and the outside world now that they've isolated him here. They say they don't want him influencing on their little Aryan poster child. _Foolish humans, he's been under my influence far longer than you can even comprehend. Do you have any idea... do you idiots even understand how much I've done so that you can rule the world?_ And yet, far from being angry, he looks around his gilded prison with amusement. They, like all the others, have no idea the sacrifices he's made for them. They'd had no idea the power he'd given them when he laid his hands over theirs. And this? This is only the first stage of whatever nonsense they're planning to break him down. He's not concerned. There isn't a man or nation alive who's ever broken the Austrian Empire.

Prussia for his part, starts pacing and watches the bright blue sky out the window. It was bright like this on that day as well- when he'd met **her**. He hardly thinks of Acre anymore. Back when he was still just a child really. He can still remember the hoof beats shaking the ground and banners flying high when the Crusaders arrived anew to the battle. He can remember the day when the sky turned black with the arrows fired and how he'd trembled with excitement from the bedsides of the wounded wishing he could be out there fighting and not merely tending to the injured. And sometimes when it's melancholy like this he allows himself to remember those few moments of glory when he finally did steal away and take hold of his own destiny. How many centuries has it been now since he's known little else but war? How many since he refuse to subjugate himself to the banner of another? He picks at the patch on his arm as he talks wishing he could just rip the fucking thing off. Dying- he definitely remembers dying.

He'd burned their fucking flag after reviewing the minutes from the conference. _I won't slaughter for God anymore and I won't slaughter for you._ But he remembers waking up awash in blood and that damn chicken farmer grinning at him; he hadn't thought he'd ever stop vomiting. He hadn't lifted a hand against his own people like that since the 13th century. He still remembers awakening in the middle of the night and searching the mirror to make sure he was still himself and that this maddening dual identity hadn't finally broken him. Once he thought he'd seen a face other than his own staring back at him and shattered the mirror with his fist, not listening as Germany assured him there was nothing there. _But it has to be me. It has to be me that holds the damn banner because if I don't do it then it'll consume him instead. I can do this. I won't let it control me. When the knights broke the old Prussians I endured. I'm stronger than that now and I won't let the monster control me, I'll use it to build the greatest empire the world's ever seen like all of us pledged and if it takes dying a fucking fourth time to be reborn again so help me I'll do it._

He forces himself to move more casually and not look like he's about to jump out of his skin at the sound of the church bells outside. They have a lot of nerve to continue ringing them. _Christ what's the matter with all of you? If God ever existed he sure as shit ain't here now..._ No, God had left him some time ago along with everything else he'd ever believed in. He dares a look at Austria, who is sitting primly, drinking his tea as if the fucking world isn't falling down around them. _Empires fall and gods die but you? You'll still be sitting there on your prissy little furniture and listening to your damn orchestra when the world ends, won't you?They'll be burning you and Ludwig alive for all this shit and I bet you won't even give 'em the satisfaction of screaming._ He can almost believe when he looks at Austria, composed, glancing at him over the teacup even as his finger idly traces the barrel of the gun, that nothing's changed. Because even when he had Austria on his knees in the dirt in Torgau the first time he finally laid eyes on him, the sonofabtich never gave him the satisfaction of breaking.

_Haven't changed a bit since then have you? Those stupid fucking glasses to look down your nose at everyone. Even when I broke the damn things and had your fucking picture painted when I won you still made me feel like I fucking lost. _He doesn't let himself see the tremors or the light sheen of sweat, and he doesn't allow himself to hear the strain in Austria's voice because as long as the damn aristocrat is around to drink his stupid tea with his stupid little finger sticking out and his stupid fucking piano waiting to be played in the corner everything will be fine.

Prussia forces himself to breathe more steadily as the red overtakes his vision and the room spins. "Must suck balls to be as weak as you, yeah…" and on he goes again. He still feels as if he's going insane. He's felt patriotism; he's let himself be swept away under the tide of his people's love and exhilaration. He's felt the zealotry of the crusades and when he was reborn he felt as if he could've cleansed the world of all of its non believers in one grand conflagration. When the knights swept through Prussia and made it theirs he'd felt like God himself. But this cold exorcism?- This is fanaticism and madness and fear and it makes him feel invincible when it's at its peak and sick to his stomach when he's lucid. Up until now he hadn't thought anything could hurt as much as that first transformation when he died at Acre. The sword through his chest right when they conquered the old Prussians had hurt like a fucking bitch but he arose like Jesus on the third day- _see me blaspheme fuckers, I told you words mean nothing to me anymore_- and he felt like the world was his. But Christ when he awoke from the shot in the back in the middle of that mess with Rohm and his fucking fairy corp he felt almost as if he were still dead.

How young is Germany as a mature nation? He remembered so little after he'd become Germany that Prussia almost couldn't bear to see the empty look in his brother's eyes when they fell upon him. How much easier would it have been if he'd boosted up a nation with experience and cunning like Bavaria or Saxony? Hell any of his other brothers was older and far better equipped to handle such an unpleasant business. But when he knelt down to where his baby brother lay on his deathbed while France forced the fucking Treaty of Pressburg down Austria's throat and tried to shut those beautiful blue eyes he couldn't do it.

_He looked down at the pale figure on the bed and as close as he and France had been in the past he'd never wanted more to murder the fucker where he stood. When France had given him that gun during the revolution he should've fucking pulled the trigger. As he and his brothers watched the youngest among them fading away, and Prussia felt his rage building.  
"He's gone, brother," Bavaria had said not unkindly but stiff as he'd always been. Wurtenburg had already left and with the steady procession of their family trampling in and out of the room to wish him goodbye Prussia had never felt so fucking murderous in his entire life. Everything, every goddamn stupid fucking thing he'd given to the lord to be rewarded by this? Taken down by a fucking human? By his love's brother?_

You wanted to become a man, Ludwig? To prove yourself to her? Well look at you dammit, it was that fucking Lovino who passed his power to Bonaparte right along with Francis. _France, that fucking whore would do anything for one of those little pieces of ass. He'd get his, so help him Prussia never forgot anyone who'd ever fucked him over. And as Prussia silently cursed everything he'd ever believed in and held his brother's hand tightly he finally felt the eyes of his eldest brother to be too much.  
"Get out, Joseph." And he didn't care right then about the stupid uptight asshole's insistence on calling him fucking Bavaria right now Prussia was murderous and he was reckless, and as the stiff backed Bavaria was the last to leave he threw his arms around the seemingly fragile child and held him tightly. "You idiot," he swore at him even as the small weak arms raised to encircle him back.  
"m'sorry... Gil." He heard that whisper against his shoulder and didn't think he'd ever stop shaking._

_Austria, fucking weak stupid useless Austria couldn't stand up against a fucking strong breeze without Hungary at his back and if he hadn't lost...if he hadn't been such a goddamn useless motherfucker then his brother...  
"Ludwig?" He felt the form start to still, start to breath more slowly, yet somehow more shallowly, and he thought of North Italy who'd never know just how much his stupid little brother loved her. He thought of the rest of his brothers who'd be clamoring for the damn new title and most of all he thought of the man his brother had set out to become and never reached and he made his decision. Damn them all but he just... couldn't do it. He couldn't lay him to rest like this. There should've been a new Germany born but fuck them all. He too should've died at the hands of the old Prussians but Hungary, for whatever reason, had pressed her lips to his and let him be reborn as a new nation; as Prussia._

_Prussia couldn't bear to let it end this way. So help him if he went to hell. God was dead and who knew what the fuck to believe anymore. It wasn't just them and the heathens, it was so many other things crossing and fighting and fuck them all if he was going to sin, if he was going to become a servant of evil, it would be for his brother and no one else. As he set the small figure down and those blue eyes glazed over he brushed the fine blonde hair from Ludwig's pale, still warm, forehead and he rose. He made sure the door was still closed and locked it before sitting down on the bed carefully. His brother wasn't dead. Ludwig wasn't fucking dead because he remembered how Hungary had done this and if it fucking killed him then so be it.  
"Rise, Germany," he whispered as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Ludwig's while they were still warm. One hand cupping the side of his soft, young face, he breathed it in, breathed out his power as a nation and God how many times had this been done for him?_

_It felt as if his own life was being drained out and yet he felt no stir beneath him._ Wake up. _He tilted his head, focusing harder, unaware of how his tongue lapped at the small mouth as if he could remember every taste of him. _Live, dammit! _And he sealed their mouths together, embracing him, kissing him as deeply as he had any lover, the two of them separated for so many centuries and how fucking long had it been since he'd been able to hold him. And he continued to pour everything out that he had until he truly thought he'd die himself and the small body finally started to stir once more beneath him. He smiled crookedly at Germany, before passing out on the floor._

He should've told Austria to go fuck himself when he asked for the young German Empire after they'd sacked Bismark. He saw the brief unguarded expression when Austria had first laid eyes upon the man Ludwig had grown into and could've put a sword to his neck in anger but instead he used it. He saw a weakness and he saw a chance and Christ why the hell hadn't that asshole ever looked at him with equal acknowledgement like he was the fucking Prussian Empire and not still a knight in the service of some old man? Fuck him. Fuck him he'd use that weak asshole's lust against him and so help him Germany would forgive him. He'd forgiven every other time no matter how long it took and he'd forgiven him for bringing him back when he'd rather have died. He'd forgive him this as well.

The Iron Chancellor had envisioned an Empire without Austrian interference and seeing the way Germany had looked back at that stupid piano playing sissy Prussia couldn't have agreed more; perhaps there wouldn't even be anything to forgive with Germany just as smitten with that loser as he'd always been. And hell Bismark had envisioned a lot of grand things, really, but Prussia had always sided with the monarchy right or wrong and the Kaiser wanted a place for them in the sun- whatever it took. It ended up taking a deal with the fucking four eyed devil himself but for the Hohenzollerns he sucked it up and set the parchment down in all its golden lettered glory.

_Austria read it over curiously in the darkened antechamber. Germany wouldn't be privy to this and neither would Hungary. Prussia wondered in that moment if this was the only secret that he'd kept from his wife but something told him that Hungary was never really in the dark about anything. He watched the violet gaze linger over a certain line and crossed his arms, drumming his fingers. He knew what Austria was reading, after all. Knew there hadn't been an arrangement like that since South Italy had given France Bonaparte. And Austria knew that he'd never forgotten that. He had his own grudge against France to settle, after all._

_"So we have a deal, right, specs? A brother for a son?" Austria looked at him curiously, his hand hovering over the page.  
"I trust your... feelings for your brother won't cause any issues?" he asked delicately. Prussia snorted. "I'm not fucking him if that's what you mean. I'll leave that sin to you, Amnon" Austria frowned.  
"I hardly need to force him, Gilbert. The language we share... the people... I'm sure you feel the pull too." Prussia turned away with a violent puff of breath.  
"Yeah, I know. I also know there's a reason crap like that's forbidden, so when the two of you burn later, just remember I warned you. I offered you a hell of a lot better than damnation and my pigheaded brother." Austria nodded as he placed his seal upon the agreement. One that only nations were privy to.  
"Perhaps Elizaveta will forgive me my sins when all of us stand at the top of the world even if God does not. What did you say, Gilbert? A kingdom that shall endure for a thousand years?" Austria smiled at him- only for him- in that moment. It was like a second sunrise and for just a second did Prussia allowed himself to remember that the woman he loved and the man he despised were one in the same._

Germany is too immature and he's forgotten too much; Prussia can see that now. He doesn't know how to fight the influence of their boss and he doesn't know how to say no to the darker impulses of humanity when they rise up like a red tide. When he'd told him in the darkness, clinging to him like a damn lifeline about all the things horrible he'd done and seen. Prussia had told himself that Germany was only exaggerating. He told himself that his little brother was tired and that the pressure of the war was making him see things. He talked with Austria and they both put the fucking screws to him because they'd worked too hard for him to back down because of a little blood on his hands. Germany hadn't slaughtered anyone because Germany would never hold a gun to the back of an old woman's head and pull the trigger and whatever he thought he did was just the damn stress and rapid change and he just needed to get as used to war as they were.

Prussia stops at last, winding down, and his hands rest on the sill of the large bay window. His head is bowed as if in prayer but Austria knows that he hasn't prayed in years. Austria pulls his hand away from the gun and takes a moment to bow his head with him in the silent moment, his head between his knees now that no one can see and tries to breathe out the agony. Through his own labored breathing he hears Prussia speaking in an oddly soft voice and he looks up sharply at the words.  
"They say... they say the humans we give our power to are like a fucking mirror of ourselves. Explains why fucking Bonaparte was a pervert with a fucking short man complex and all that. So what's that say about us? What's that say about us when our fucking "son" is a-"  
"Don't you dare say it," Austria grits out in interruption because if Prussia never says it then they never have to acknowledge it.

Because the "fhrer" isn't just their boss but the man touched by Prussia's hand and Austria's and he inherited whatever they poured into him and for chrissake their "son" is not a fucking demon. And if he's a mirror of everything inside of them both and whatever they might have done over the years then Jesus Christ what sort of monsters are they? What the hell kind of darkness lurks inside both of them? _No, God no I've done some fucked up shit but that doesn't mean..._ But he saw the numbers on Austria's arm and he had to stop lying to himself when it was staring him undeniably in the face; somehow he hadn't felt he'd failed until that moment. And over Austria's fucking objections he'd insisted that Germany join both Italies in North Africa with Rommel.

Austria refused to tell him exactly what had happened. Prussia, in his anger, lacked such mercy when he realized what was starting- what had already been happening under their noses. Instead he threw each word at him viciously- not hysterically because hysterics were for crazies and women. _"You wanted Ludwig, Roderich? Well now you'll have a whole fucking world of him and that fucking blonde haired blue eyed aryan perfection! How's that for a wedding present?"_ Austria had replied with silence and a look half pitying and half guilty. He'd broken the door when he stormed out. God when did he become so weak? Why should he give a damn about humans or that damn aristocrat or anything else but conquest?

_"Humans die and we endure. Sometimes they die more brutally than other times but they always die."_ Isn't that what Germania had told him centuries ago? Isn't that what he's always believed? This was no worse than anything he'd ever done, right? But this wasn't just about his people. Something about seeing that haunted look in the eyes of his brother- seeing what crimes he'd forced himself to commit to become "strong"... it was unbearable. He could've laughed at that. Austria'd told him at Torgau that the only unbearable thing is that nothing is unbearable. The words had always stuck with him, despite coming from such a weakling.

Austria looks at Prussia keenly throughout his disjointed rantings, carefully hiding his thoughts behind the china. _You're afraid,_ he realizes with a terrible insight. When had he become so easily able to read him? He tries to force himself to focus- to see through the haze of his throbbing nerves. He wants to reach out and touch Prussia. If it were Hungary standing there about to collapse he wouldn't hesitate to silently put his arms around her. He wouldn't hesitate to tell her that no, she wasn't a monster, that it was he that was the villain for continuing to demand such sacrifices. He wouldn't hesitate to tell her that together they're stronger than this and together they can still conquer the world and that he still loves- He nearly drops the teacup then goes still as death as the thought violently aborts itself in his mind. _Did they finally resort to putting the drugs in my drink?_

"I'll take it," he says at last. And as Prussia looks about to fall apart he remains steady. Austria is calm and he takes the gun because Prussia needs him to and right now a thousand years seems far too long for anything to endure, let alone this twisted empire of theirs. _We were so damn arrogant back then, weren't we? Nothing could stop us right? We'd own the world: you, me, and the greatest thing that's both bound us together and kept us apart._ He bows his head and looks down and wonders why he would ever desire a child when he has a man who's given his very soul because of a promise for his boss: a man who's spent centuries loving a damn illusion because Austria's allowed it. Why had he been so fixated on one boy when he already had a woman strong enough to match his ambition and forgive him his duplicity.

He looks at Prussia and then around at the rest of the palatial room. His eyes dart to the bedroom doors and the room beyond where he'd held Adonis like quicksilver and felt him spill into every part of his being. He wonders why he feels ill at the thought of finally getting everything he's ever wanted. He wonders what it would be like to be held as himself by one who knows every facet of his body, who's held him so reverently like he was the only thing on earth but only so long as he believed him to be another. _No! I'm Roderich Edelstein. And Roderich Edelstein hates you just as much as you hate him... _Suddenly, the room feels stifling, it's hard to breathe, and he's sure now that they put something in his drink.

"What would you have me do with this old relic anyway?" Austria asks at last, cradling the piece like a newborn child. It's heavy in his hands and somehow he can still feel the ghost of the other's soul in it. Prussia stares, seeing in his mind's eye not Austria but France seated in front of him and it isn't 1942 but 1793 when he and France were still on speaking terms. _And France had handed him that pistol, the dark circles under his eyes like bruises, his hands scarred and shaking.  
"Please Gilbert, if this doesn't end- if I become that thing again- shoot me." _Prussia blinks again and looks at Austria, bringing himself back to the present. The man is so deceptively fragile, yet he knows after all these years that Austria won't hesitate if the time comes.  
"Do whatever you fucking have to do."

Notes:

During the 13th century the Teutonic knights were sent to forcibly Christianize the old Prussians. The new Kingdom of Prussia ultimately rose from this violent suppression.

"minutes from the conference" is referencing the Wannsee Conference held in 1942 which laid out and approved the plan for the "Final Solution" of the Jewish question as they had put it.

"chicken farmer" refers to Heinrich Himmler, overseer of the SS, concentration camps, extermination camps, and the einsatzgruppen. He had a short lived apprenticeship as a chicken farmer.

The Battle of Torgau was the bloodiest battle fought in 1760 in the Seven Years War resulting in an outnumbered Prussia defeating Austria at a great cost.

Ernst Rohm was the leader of the SA and more or less openly homosexual. During the Night of the Long Knives, there was a massive purging of the SA in part to "clean up" the Nazi party of undesirables, and in another part to supposedly suppress a plot against Hitler.

The Treaty of Pressburg was signed in 1805 between France and Austria where Austria was forced to cede major holdings in Germany to both France and Italy. It marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire.

Amnon in the bible was the son of David who desired his half sister Thamar. He tried to seduce her and when that failed he raped her.

Erwin Rommel, aka the Desert Fox, was a famous and decorated German Field Marshall who led the German and Italian forces in the North African campaign in WWII. He was considered one of the last great heroes of Germany and was never accused of any war crimes. He was also part of the conspiracy against Adolf Hitler.

1793 was the height of the Reign of Terror in France.


	3. Eadwacer

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or any of its characters. I'm also not making any money off of this.

Note: There is a big amount of Austria/Hungary and a smattering of Poland/Hungary. Also I wanted to give a huge shoutout to my beta going by doomy_slasher on lj and also the beta who picked up where she had to leave off Jazz. Both have been of huge help. I hope this doesn't disappoint as we roll into the main plot. I also made some edits to things I wasn't happy with here. Enjoy!

3

"Eadwacer"

_Nigirishimeta tsumetai yubi kimi wa kanashiku warai_

_Boku wa kakeru kotoba mo naku keshiki wa nijimu_

_Hajimareba izure owaru kirei koto nado iranai_

_Semete kimi wo atatametai_

_Honno sukoshi no jikan wo ataete Kami sama_

_I squeezed your cold fingers and you sadly smile_

_And I can't find any words to say, and the scenery starts to blur_

_If it starts, it will someday end. There is no need for excuses_

_I, at least, want to keep you warm_

_God, please just give me a little more time_

_-Angela Separation_

Vienna, Austria

Austria's House

November 30th, Present Day

The snow crunches beneath his feet as the two of them walk side by side down the long snow covered driveway. Austria can feel the weight of the bags growing steadily more apparent with each step as he falls behind. She continues on steadfast without him as she always has. Hungary's never forgotten the way. She's never forgotten anything about him: forgiven but never forgotten, just like Prussia. Ah, but of course Prussia's never forgiven him either. Austria stops and closes his eyes briefly to reorient himself. There are so many houses here now that never existed before. He's always found that as soon as he's memorized and mentally marked the landscape it changes. The world, like Hungary, always seems to be leaving him behind.

The old mobile phone in his pocket rings and he makes a pitiful attempt to answer it, nearly dropping everything in the process. He clicks his tongue in annoyance and Hungary sighs as if she's done this a million times before.

"Here c'mon…" She turns around and comes back for him. Ignoring any protest- she wrestles the bags away with practiced ease- seeming to have a much easier time shouldering them than he was.

Austria looks away with a faint embarrassed huff as he fishes the old clunky mobile from his coat pocket fiddling with the buttons. Prussia still teases him about not having texting capabilities or a vibrate function as if somehow a phone should be able to operate for grander purposes than mere phone calls. They both know he's hopeless with technology. He can hear Hungary grumbling about the nine hour train ride back from Hechingen as he answers it. Still, she had followed him without protest. He fiddles with his coat, brushing off some imaginary dirt while she waits.

"You always do seem to pick the most inconvenient times to call." Austria looks annoyed, standing still, folding his arms to ward off the cold. He's learned over the years it's less distracting not to try to walk and talk.

"She's there, isn't she?" Prussia asks right away.

Austria sighs, looking up into the night sky. _Of course she is. She's the only one standing between us and damnation, isn't she? That's what you told me. For all I thought you'd never trust her with something so terrible... _But it's better for her that she never hears any of it. She can't betray what she doesn't know and they can't torture out what isn't there.

_The stars are beautiful tonight... they never change, do they? _Once, some sixty years ago on a snowy night like this he and Prussia looked up into the sky over sixty years ago as the world was falling down around them. Austria said to him in that quiet bitter moment that every perfect star up there was already dead. Prussia said that suited them perfectly.

And when Hungary walks over to him, bags still in hand, and presses her forehead to the back of his neck when he bows his head back down, it's all too easy to pretend when it's only the two of them that nothing has changed. She never left him; he never betrayed her. She never betrayed _him_; he never gave into temptation and in some maddened moments he thinks that even that war would be better than this because his dreams have always been so much better than reality. His thumb circles over the worn plastic of the phone and he turns his head to the side, watching the wind blow the top layer of snow off into the night.

"Obviously. Sometimes you ask the most stupid..." he trails off and pulls away just as she pulls back and manages an apologetic smile. "If you want to go ahead to the house…" She has the key and she knows the way and it's not like they expect her to watch him every second. Ah, but then again they still think she's on their side don't they? _Isn't she though? Isn't she still waiting for us to slip up?_

"I can wait." Her voice sounds so easy and free as she speaks he can almost delude himself into believing she really is on his side. "What's a few minutes after an all day trip, after all?" He nods and doesn't falter once; he didn't really expect her to go.

"Nice try little princess." He swallows, eyes drifting downward. Even if she isn't a concern that doesn't mean they can drop their guard.

"Watch your language, pig." _Because I don't know if she can hear you or not and it's better to never say anything concrete because speculation is just that. And I don't know if they're_ _listening. _

"Don't worry; the line's safe. Kiku saw to that." He's thankful they still have a few loyal allies. Some of the tension slips from his shoulders and Hungary shifts to the other foot, stepping back to watch him, with a far more somber expression, where he can't see as she speaks to him.

"Really, he can't call you back?" _Are you insane? Dammit, Roderich, I can't keep protecting you. If you had any sense… if you ever had even half a woman's sense you'd just.._. Hungary watches as he turns his back to her, fingering the silver cross around his neck with a pale and wan expression, clutching the phone as if Prussia's the only thing he's holding onto. _You're aren't the only ones who lost the war, Roderich. Maybe one day you'll even be able to see that. And maybe one day you'll remember that you asked me to protect you before you ever turned to Gilbert..._

* * *

"_You're leaving me, aren't you?" She opened her eyes and blinked, staring at the billowing curtains adorning the open window. Head pillowed against Austria's shoulder joint, Hungary's fingers dug into the smooth skin of his chest. _

"_You say that like I actually came back to you in the first place." His hand on her back moved, the long fingers unmarred by calluses lightly stroking the scarred skin. She tensed in spite of herself, like she never used to, and he sighed._

"_You are here, are you not?" His speech was stiff, formal, and uncertain like it was seven hundred years ago at Kressenbrunn when she was still trying to figure out who the hell she was and he was as he'd always been, the elegant ice prince. Except that time he'd been a princess, not a prince. _

"_So are you." Not here in the house- it was his after all,- but here with her when they had already ripped Prussia away from his brother and the younger was falling apart in his usual stoic silence. She felt his hand go still._

"_Perhaps this is where I ought to be." He spoke in that distant affectation he often retreated into and she didn't dare look up to see where in the darkened room his eyes were focused. "Perhaps this is where I always should have been." _

_Perhaps. If. Maybe. They were the musings of a man already resigned to atonement. Austria had a terrible habit of making the right decisions far too late to matter. Hungary almost felt like a ghost beneath his touch and wondered if he even truly believed half the words that he said. Austria was rather fond of perfunctory nonsense._

_She didn't answer him for a while; not because he was right but because she was wondering why she was even here. 'You_ _were the only one to save me, Felix. You were the only one who even realized I needed saving at all.' She was here with the serpent when Poland was the one who'd thrown into the mouth of hell for her. Poland was- And then she felt his lips brush her hair and felt Austria's fingers dance up to her shoulder in that way of his that made her shiver and for a moment she forgot about Poland. She found herself closing her eyes, for just that moment, because no matter how much of a pragmatic woman she'd always been to his flighty dreamer she couldn't help but wish that this moment was all that existed between the two of them. 'God, you're hopeless, Liz.'_

"_I shouldn't be here," she answered at last, slipping from his grasp and sitting up on the warm, silky sheets of the large bed. "I should be with my people right now." 'I should be with Feliks right now_.' _But now, just like always, she was with him. Hungary was with him in Klessheim where she'd brought her bosses to their betrayal and she was with him when Eichmann took her people away. She was still with him when they finally came for her. Hungary had been him for every miserable triumph and failure and she threw herself in front of him even in those last final hours. _

_Hungary knew he could see the scars on her back when the moon reappeared from behind the clouds; she heard the sharp intake of breath from behind. Self-consciously- like she hadn't been since she was a teenager- she pulled her hair back from where it spilled over her shoulder and let it fall to where he couldn't see the raised flesh anymore. Russia had all too happily run her through with a bayonet. Austria sat up, hands on her shoulders in that familiar gesture that used to give her comfort, and she closed her eyes when she felt his mouth trail over her neck softly._

"_You know I love you, Liz," he whispered against her cool skin. Austria didn't apologize. He never did. He never asked for forgiveness or offered explanation for anything he'd ever done. 'No… you looked right through me with Ludwig and Gilbert standing behind you when they… but you love me so dearly, don't you, Roderich? I'm the most beautiful woman on earth in your eyes.' He whispered those promises a thousand times just like a lover even though they both knew she never believed him. 'And didn't Prussia always say that every word he'd ever heard Roderich utter was a lie? You know better than that, Liz.'_

_Right... Prussia._

_Hungary looked down at her breasts under her folded arms. 'It should_ _be Roderich I hate. But it isn't. You're the only one I could never forgive, Gilbert. It wasn't Roderich who looked at me like my body was the most vile thing he'd ever seen. It wasn't Roderich who told me I was worthless as a man or a woman.' And it wasn't Austria who'd rolled off her in the middle of trying to fuck her and vomited on the ground. 'No, you couldn't stand being with a real woman, could you, Gilbert? You had to have her." It was that moment that she saw Austria's other self dancing with Spain, looking at her as if she didn't even exist that she came to realize her greatest love and her greatest rival were one in the same._

_Hungary pulled away from him again, rising from the bed. Dammit she just couldn't look at him right now without wanting to hit him thinking of all that shit she would've sworn she'd buried so deep god couldn't find it. She hated being naked and vulnerable in front of him. Even now she hated that she never seemed to be as comfortable in her own skin as any of them ever since Prussia made her realize she was different than he and those differences drove them irreconcilably apart._

"_Then tell me right now that if I give you a choice between them and me, from here 'til forever that it's me that you'd choose." And she could tell even with that silence that he was thinking, calculating the best thing to say, whatever magic words of his would be both truth and lie. She wouldn't let him._

"_If you loved me so damn much Roderich," she pressed on furiously, "then why... why_ _did you give me to Gilbert when I was the only one still loyal to you!?" _

_Hungary remembered the plans drawn up that France had carved out at Nuremberg when the humans had left and it was only them. She hadn't asked because she was too damn numb to care but she wasn't shying away from it now when the firing squad that was Russia was waiting for her to come back to the winter prison and she had to figure out what the hell was waiting for her other than Poland. Hungary watched him wanting to scream. Even after they'd just made lo- fucked... even after they just fucked, Austria still kept the sheets carefully pulled up over his lap. 'You'll never give anyone all of you, will you? You could never bear to expose yourself to anyone. Making love to Antonio in the dark? With your eyes covered. But that's how you've always been, Roderich. _

_She could see out of the corner of her eyes as she stood barefoot on the soft woven rug that he was struggling. Well the hell with him. Austria was speaking so quietly she had to turn and look at him, bridge that distance again, palms flat on the duvet, practically having to read his lips._

"_... you always loved him the most." And she slapped him. She put her entire shoulder into it, heard the satisfying _crack, _and watched his head rock to the side. And she stayed there, looking at him angrily, balefully, feeling more than hearing the blood pounding in her ears as she hissed out her words. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare_ _talk about that like you know anything about it." Because of all the people who never knew and never were supposed to know anything about that he was right at the top of that list._

'_I can't do this any more.' She was moving fast now, gathering her discarded clothes from the floor, just daring him to chastise her for not cleaning properly first. She didn't see him bring one pale hand to his face and whisper softly that their bodies were the only thing their kind had to bargain with and what else did they have when they didn't even have freedom over their own destinies?_

"_Don't you dare act as if you know what's best for me. You've never known a damn thing about me." She had to get out of there before she drowned._

"_You never told me what happened between the two of you."_

"_I told you what you needed to know. It was a promise between men- something I expect you know little about." It was a promise to never tell of the great Kingdom of Prussia's inability to be intimate with a woman- at least not a real one. She wished she knew back then when she was young and uncertain that in spite of his words it was him and not her who was at fault and-_

"_Predictably emasculating- you two are more alike than you realize." Austria carefully slid to the side of the bed and leaned over reaching for the discarded shirt, still keeping himself covered. She didn't know why but dress half buttoned she stormed over and ripped that stupid sheet off even as she flung the shirt in his face. 'That was low even for you, Roderich. I'm nothing like him. Nothing.'_

"_And what about you then? You're just so damn proper, aren't you? You and her. Is that why he fucked her and not you?"_

_She saw his fingers tighten around the shirt and her own fists were balled at her sides as if she was ready for a fight: a fight like they hadn't had in over forty years. 'You know you want to hit me Roderich. You never will but it's not the first time I've seen your control slip and right now so help me I'll let you have it like the last time. I can't do this anymore. I don't care how much you deny it you know that it's always been the two of you longer than you've been lying to me. It's not just her_ _he's been fixated on. It's been you and his brother and I'll never know how I was so damn blind. But I thought when they put the lot of you on trial at Nuremberg and made the consequences clear when they made you sign that treaty that all of us could move on.'_

_Austria was still silent and the trembling, the rise and fall of his shoulders fighting back every bit of rage she'd always seen him keep so tightly in check was clear- as was the expression of near agony. And that was when she realized that no matter what happened she was a fool who could never truly turn her back on him. They'd given her and Prussia to Russia. They separated both Germany and Prussia and broke every bit of their covenant into a thousand pieces of glass but... Her fingers fell absently to the envelope she'd sewn in to the sleeve of the hidden pocket of her skirt. Hungary wondered why he would entrust her with such a thing knowing that she had to report to the rest of them now. It was a test then. She'd read it herself too, masochist that she was. "Doubt truth to be a liar." _

"_I thought we both agreed a long time ago that we weren't going to mention that woman." Austria answered in a strained voice and she wondered what he could possibly be thinking now. _

_Her smile was humorless as she finished buttoning the green fabric closed. "That's funny, she said the same thing about you."_

* * *

Unaware of her thoughts, Austria is about to answer her when Prussia blurts out on the other end of the phone, "America's coming." The silence from Austria's end is nearly tangible. He answers easily even as his heart feels about to pound out of his chest. This is a far more dangerous game, after all, than they've ever played before and as much as she hated him for it, he knows that Hungary will listen and deduce because she's always been too clever to let things lie, just like back then.

"That's absurd! A red white and green cake? Only America would come up with such a ridiculous notion. I can't believe Ludwig would ever agree to bake such a monstrosity!" Her posture relaxes and once again he wonders if it's relief that he's still so careful or relief that she can let up on watch him. Even if she knows- even if she doesn't believe him at least now she can pretend. He's slipped up before and she's always looked the other way and chastised him when they were alone and covered for him. He's hated that she'd even had to. He's hated that, even so he can't bring himself to trust her- but he can't. They've been waiting for him to slip up ever since the war ended.

* * *

_Gathered around the small table in the conference room, the six nations met in secret to guarantee in history the document signed by their representatives. The parchment on the table looked no different to human eyes, but to those surrounding it, the faint golden glow of the words was evident. Austria looked it over carefully knowing that every eye in the room was on him. He knew this day was coming, they simply wished to deal with Germany and Prussia first. When Russia claimed "East Germany", Austria had felt the urge to use that damn gun Prussia had given him for a second time. As he looked at each of them in succession he wondered if he could shoot them all before they stopped him._

"_This forbids..." he almost choked as he read the words. Forbid unification with Germany: ensured there would never be another _Anschluss_. Christ, Figl would have no idea what this truly meant to they who were nations; Austria would sooner die than tell him. They were probably counting on that._

"_It shouldn't be a problem should it?" Russia questioned sunnily and Austria snapped his attention up at him. _

'_You're loving this aren't you, you sadistic little demon? You can't have what you want so you have to destroy everyone else who does. You have Gilbert and Elizaveta both now and it still isn't enough for you.'_

_But Austria merely licked his lips and forced his hand to stop shaking. "It's merely a formality, Roderich," England had chimed in seemingly oblivious to what the rest of them had already guessed: the true nature of his relationship with his cousin._

"_After all, you'd never actually bed either of them, would you _monsieur _aristocrat? Your own blood relations?" France wore no such blinders. But then again France's little "Madeline" had transmitted far more than she should have before they killed her. France never did forgive them for that one. France never gave them for a lot of things but it was France who tried to destroy the young Germany and it was France who would have seen Bavaria break them all apart after the last war. "You know that such a forbidden act would mean-"_

"_Only you'd ever accuse someone of such disgusting perversions you filthy minded frog!" Austria could've kissed him for the diversion as France responded with predictable hostility and the real reason the hateful thing was even being signed was forgotten as America jumped in on England's side and Russia on France's. Austria felt the room spin as they argued and thought he might be dying. _

_France and Russia- they knew. Oh god they knew. Or if they didn't know they suspected and perhaps that was even worse. But there was no helping it now and he could go back to his room and be sick when it was over._

"_Of course I'll sign it," he answered with a perfectly affected offense. "Really, I was shocked that you would even imply such an indiscretion on my part." _

_He caught France's eyes then. 'You were sleeping with her, weren't you? You never answered me that day we caught you but I know you were always far too close to those humans.' _

_Christ how reckless the three of them had been. Acting as if they'd already won and were above the laws laid down by God himself. Austria swallowed the bile in his throat, the practiced air of nobility swirling around him. He reread the document shrewdly and then drew his finger across the page watching as another term in flowery language appeared with that lick of flame from his hand. He pressed his palm to seal it, the red and white glow of the Austrian flag standing out proudly. _

_Russia was the first to read the declaration of everlasting neutrality and laughed with childish amusement. Austria observed that curiously but chose not to comment._

"_Ah, how delightful. My boss had wanted me to request this anyway but it seems our minds are one in this matter."_

_France narrowed his eyes across the table as if to ask what game he was playing. Austria met him with a beatific smile: the one that made the entire room sparkle around him. Switzerland would be so proud._

'_Just the lot of you wait. Peace doesn't last forever and when it inevitably fails and the hounds of hell are running through your streets baying for your blood I'll stand there and fiddle like Nero while your cities burn to the ground.' _

_He watched them signing it, all of them aware on some level that on a battlefield their people and their bosses would never see, a gauntlet had been thrown down._

* * *

"Hey, the kid's still young right?" Prussia's voice anchors him and holds him fast to the present. "It's nothing but daring plots and happy endings for the hero and all that Hollywood bullshit."

"Hmm..." his answer was that noncommittal sound which could mean anything from "building that Ninja Warrior replica in the yard was one of the stupidest things you've ever done" to "Why yes, I'd love another cookie, thank you."

Prussia's responding "ttch" was equally ambiguous. Both of them could read the habitual vociferations with an ease that used to make Hungary jealous. She merely sighs and silently wishes that it was safe for him to trust her. She hasn't hated him in a long time now but Austria has never seemed to understand that there are deeper human emotions than just love and hate.

"I'm just giving you a heads up so you don't have a coronary when your little "lover boy" doesn't arrive alone for Christmas." Austria frowns. _No. Matthew's far too cautious too assume such risks. He wouldn't dare it no matter how jealous that idiot brother of his is, no matter what new game the two of them are playing._

"Be that as it may I'm sure my stomach won't be able to handle it. I doubt even Matthew could stand such a disgusting confection either." _Tell me, God tell me this is all Alfred's ridiculous-_

"Heh, you know how it is with those two." He knew all too well unfortunately. "At least we'll all die happy, right?" No. No, they won't die. They won't be found out and they won't be forced to choose between... If he has to... if he has destroy the damn world... if he has to feed the two golden twins to the wolves in his stead he won't-.

"While I'd love to hear more about this ridiculous dessert, it is rather cold out here and I'd like to go inside. Perhaps you might reign in some of your lover's asinine ideas?" Prussia will talk some sense into him. Prussia will talk some sense into him because America's in the same damn boat. If he thinks that the lot of them won't treat him like Loki daring to insult the other gods just because he's the world's super power he's delusional.

"Like it's any warmer in your house, Scrooge." _It would be if the two of you were here... _And he barely resists the urge to shake his head at such romantic nonsense knowing that Prussia would laugh and Germany would just blush and stammer some unintelligible nonsense in response and Prussia is neatly avoiding talking about it further.

"I'm hanging up now." His tone is tart and he doesn't leave any time for the other to answer before he closes the phone and stuffs it into his pocket. He says nothing more and tries to at least divide the bags up between the two of them. Hungary's hand brushes his lightly and she looks at him, the moon's pale light shadowing her face and she leans in, her lips cold as they brush his cheek.

"It's not twilight yet," she says with a warm ghost of breath before turning vibrantly around. "C'mon. I'll race you."

Austria trips over the foyer step out of breath when they finally reach the house, a step behind her, and with an ease borne of years of practice, Hungary turns and catches him before he hits the ground. They share a small, sad smile before pulling apart. The ceramics are safe for now. The cost of the tickets and the gifts always give his stomach a vaguely unsettled feeling, but the thought of Hohenzollern Castle folding is far worse. The living room, immaculate and full of furniture no one ever sits on, is lit up with lights and expensive decorations collected from years prior. Above the fireplace still hangs a painted portrait of them in their wedding attire. She, the beautiful maiden dressed in white trimmed with red and gold and he the handsome aristocrat in his pristine officer's uniform. He stands looking boldly out ahead- they wouldn't let him wear his glasses- and in the classical pose of the time she kneels at his feet, one arm raised to hold his waist and he supposes it's in rather poor taste to leave it up, but the twin portrait secreted away is hardly better.

"_Like, seriously?" Poland had commented last winter when he was taking stock of everything in the living room. "You guys haven't been married in almost a hundred years. I could give you a fantastic_ _Czachórski if you're that hard up for something to hang there. Who still keeps their wedding picture like above the fireplace like that? If I were Canada, you would so be sleeping on the couch. And like, talk about tacky, you know that pose went out like a hundred years ago." _

_Austria had wondered when he'd become close enough to the other nation that he felt free to speak so offensively but Austria was a master of the little polite political game and even the warning look from Hungary didn't hold his tongue. Germany in all his fury couldn't constrain him and even in the face of the trials he held his own against any of them. _

_Austria merely smiled at Hungary who was regarding him with a frown. He smiled at her as if she were the only one in the room and took her hand with an exaggerated flourish. With a bow, he kissed the top, feeling her tense, knowing that she was a step from slapping him- knowing that he'd deserve it._

"_Sometimes, I like being reminded of holding a beautiful woman in my arms." Poland had laughed like it was the funniest damn thing in the world, but Austria could see as he discreetly looked over the rims of his spectacles that the other nation's eyes were dark. He wondered if Poland was going to threaten him the way he did Russia, but no, Poland just crossed his arms and continued to look at the portrait as if there was just something terribly interesting about it._

"_Haha, yeah y'know like looking at it I can see it totally suits you guys perfectly."_

The two of them continue on to the far less ostentatious den where he entertains the few people he doesn't feel the need to put on airs for. The worn red carpet is comfortable beneath his feet and Austria pretends not to notice when Hungary turns the thermostat up. The gesture is so normal and familiar it hurts. He's never scolded her the way he does Prussia, but somehow the interaction is less intimate because of that.

"_I'm freezing my fucking sac off in here, damn it, would it kill you to turn the heat up?" Austria looked up from his place on the adjacent loveseat, The House of the Dead_ _sitting open in his lap._

"_You're a man, aren't you? You should be able to stand a little cold in this economy." He looked at Germany, seated on Prussia's left with several reports stacked in his lap. He ignored the protest that his economy was hardly affected. "I'm sure Ludwig is warm enough for the both of you." The nation in question steadfastly ignored them, head bent over the small script of Bavaria's handwriting. He muttered to himself about the old man refusing to use so much as a typewriter. Prussia glanced over his shoulder and with a red pen scribbled a serious note in the margin before turning back to Austria._

"_C'mon, I got two sides here. Keep me warm, asshole," he whined. With a put upon expression tempered only by the unconscious softness in his eyes, Austria sat down beside him with his book, head resting on his shoulder for just a quick moment. "Don't I always?"_

He sets the packages down near the space reserved for the large Christmas tree, letting them join the other extravagant gifts. A faint smile crosses his face in the dark where Hungary can't see it.

"_Here, let me show you two little girls how a real man does it." Prussia had claimed the chainsaw as soon as they'd gotten out of the rented vehicle. _

_Canada stayed back, ironically enough, as he was the one best suited for the task. He seemed to have an odd aversion to the chainsaw and had pleaded the case for an old fashioned two-man saw. But seeing the chance to rent something loud and powerful, Prussia would hardly be dissuaded._

"_Be careful with that you savage! It's not a toy." Canada looked uneasy as he approached, his hands still stuffed warmly in his pockets._

"_Ah… Gilbert, have you ever done this befo-"_

"_No, he hasn't. Give Matthew the chainsaw before you hurt yourself you idiot." Prussia grinned in front of the tree holding the power tool up in a dramatic pose and Austria almost wished he'd brought a camera._

"_Aww, specs, I knew you cared…"_

"Is Gilbert bringing the cider again?" He hears her ask as she sets down the bags she was carrying.

He opens the long buffet filled with wrapping paper and frowns when he doesn't see the ribbons or bows.

"Ludwig is," he answers somewhat stiffly. He doesn't trust whatever vitriolic concoction Prussia would supply a second time. He has no control over anything he does or says while inebriated and in front of witnesses it's too dangerous.

"_Cmon, specs," he'd taunted when they had their own private celebration last year on December 6th. "Old Fritz and I used to knock back a bottle of this home brew every year. It's tame as mother's milk."_

Clearly Prussia's mother had been a woman of far greater mettle than his own.

"That's a shame," she answers looking over her shoulder with a playful smile. "I wouldn't mind adding a few things to the album when Matthew visits." It goes unsaid that he'd better make this the best damn performance of his life. Where Canada goes, France follows and it makes Austria wonder if the stakes haven't become more personal than he ever imagined. Let the lot of the snakes come for him. Let Germany bring North Italy. Let Germany and Prussia fawn all over the interfering little. _Don't let the smile leave your face and stop thinking about it._ _Stop thinking about want to shoot him with that damn gun Prussia had given you when you saw the two of them together_. But no. No, violence wasn't and wouldn't be necessary because Germany had assured him a long time ago that neither Italy would ever lay with a man.

Notes:

Hechingen is a city in Germany near Hohenzollern Castle (the castle being the historic seat of the Prussian royal family)

The Battle of Kressenbrunn was fought in 1260 over the dutchies of Austria and Styria. The Kingdom of Hungary fought the Kingdom of Bohemia with Austria fighting on Bohemia's side. It is considered one of the biggest battles in medieval Europe and resulted in a Bohemian/Austrian victory.

Adolph Eichmann the "architect of the Holocaust" was a Nazi, an SS-Obersturmbannführer who was sent to Hungary in 1944 ultimately deporting 430,000 to their deaths. Even after being ordered to halt exterminations in 1945 by Heinrich Himmler, he continued until Hungary was occupied by the Soviets.

**After WWII Hungary became part of the Eastern bloc of the Soviet Union.

The treaty in this is the 1955 Austrian State Treaty which basically declares Austria's pledge to eternal neutrality and forbids another Anschluss i.e. reunification with Germany.

Leopold Figl was the Austrian foriegn minister who signed the treaty along with Vyacheslav Molotov (Soviet Union), John Foster Dulles (USA), Harold Macmillan (United Kingdom) and Antoine Pinay (France).

"Madeleine" was the code name of Princess Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, who acted as a spy for the French and was a highly decorated member of the French Resistance in WWII in occupied France. She was a wireless operator and was captured and executed in 1944

The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky is about a man sentenced to serve ten years hard labor in Siberia and describes a great spiritual reawakening.

Czachórski was a Polish Painter


	4. Mister Germany Dances

Note: This part does contain some Germany/Italy though it's small. Thank you everyone for reading and commenting. I've tried to correct the typos in the last section too so let me know if you still see any. Big thanks as well to my beta, doomy_slasher on LJ. From this point on all errors are mine. Warning that we are getting into more dark content.

4

_What have I done? Who have I become?  
Though these words may come alive...  
Poets and prophets die..._

_-The Crüxshadows "Exile"  
_

Berlin, Germany  
Germany's House  
October 7th, 1939

Goodman; banned. The wail of the saxophone blares defiantly out of the old gramophone as the two men sit in the dimly lit living room of Germany's house. _"For your collection,"_ Veneziano had said standing in the doorway with the contraband record tucked beneath his coat far later than was appropriate. Germany had let him in without hesitation. The collection North Italy had spoken of no longer exists and Germany allows himself to enjoy the forbidden in the darkness where no one but his fellow nation shall bear witness. _I seem to be doing that a lot lately_, he thinks wondering if he should be amused or appalled at his newfound subversive behavior.  
"I know it's late, Ludwig, but I have to leave tomorrow and I didn't want to miss seeing you. I… I wanted to let you know that this time we won't be enemies- that this time we'll fight on the same side and… and I'm sure that if I speak with my boss and my brother, they'll see that joining with Germany as a friend would be to everyone's advantage."

His eyes are bright with excitement as the rush of conversation gushes from him like a fountain and Germany wonders if he was silent on the walk here like the rest of the city is anymore. Germany also thinks that the black shirt hardly suits his personality, but it gives him a confidence and certainty that cannot be denied.  
"That would definitely please the Fhrer," he answers with a smile and manages not to look embarrassed when North Italy leans in and grabs his hands in earnest. The Italian's hands are rougher than he remembers them being but they're still so warm and soothing that Germany finds them strangely fascinating.  
"_Se avanzo, seguitemi. Se indietreggio, uccidetemi. Se muoio, vendicatemi._ That's our motto now!" His head bobs excitedly and Germany finds his expression unconsciously softening as he watches him. The brothers have been working hard to try and upgrade their army; he's heard that much from Prussia's intelligence.

_Il Duce_ doesn't think they'll have to make more than a token showing but it'll be enough to garner the world's respect and Veneziano's thrilled at the idea of people looking at him and Romano as they had looked at Grandpa Rome. "If I advance, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me. _Il Duce_ says that we'll be as great as Grandpa Rome was! We won't... I... I won't let you down, Ludwig!"

His enthusiasm is infectious. Germany smiles back, the expression the most natural he's worn in the last week.  
"I have faith in you." He has every confidence in their strength and the ease with which they conquered even Poland's courageous fighters makes him feel as if anything is possible. He was jealous of Prussia leading the charge but he trusted his brother's experience and felt proud as he'd ever been when they sent the telegraph back to Austria and- Austria. _God, he's right upstairs._ He retracts his hands quickly and although Veneziano notices, he says nothing. The music is too loud all of a sudden and he can feel Austria next to him whispering like a demon on his shoulder.

_"I don't see how you can listen to this degenerate music." Germany watched those elegant hands caressing the cover of the record even as he declared it a blasphemy of noble instruments. Eternally a light sleeper, the faint commotion from downstairs had woken Germany and he'd wondered what the hell his sometimes unwanted houseguest was doing. Austria was knelt down in one of his artfully arranged -or so it oftentimes seemed- positions, clad only in one of Germany's button down white shirts. He half turned and looked up with a particular tap to the cover. Germany's eyes fell to the fabric barely sliding off that pale shoulder and he licked his lips absently._

_"So? I don't listen to it when you're around, do I?" His attention shifted back to the record when Austria tossed it aside with a derisive snort. He took another from the shelf while ignoring Germany's scramble to pick up what he now realized was Duke Ellington.  
"'Boogie Woogie'? Is that even English? As if Alfred hasn't mangled Arthur's language enough..."  
"Is there a point to all of this?" he demanded as Austria tossed that aside as well.  
"These have all been banned by the Fhrer-"  
"No doubt at your insistence."_

_Austria drew himself up at that, somehow managing to look affronted while kneeling on the floor in nothing more than a nightshirt. "I assure you, had the decision been mine, they'd be playing Schubert in the streets not Wagner." Germany snorted at that. Austria could've been the man's underfed doppelganger and he started to say as much, except it was obvious that he'd hit a nerve- Austria seemed to have quite a few of those- and instead he just let the elegant tones wash over him as Austria began to tell him in rather explicit detail exactly what was wrong with the stifling music regime they'd instituted. Germany paid him little attention focusing instead on watching the clock on the wall, staring at the old paintings, really watching everything but Austria as he waited for the other to finish. As if sensing this, Austria shifted to his hands and knee, choosing just that moment to make a better study of the shelf and its contents. The retort died on Germany's lips as he watched that shirt ride up- no, that ass was anything but underfed. The scathing musical critique faded entirely into the background as he stared temptation in the face and once again found himself lacking. Austria was a stiff puritanical aristocrat when it suited him but Germany was slowly learning he could be just as base as the rest of them- moreso even- when he put his mind to it._

_"...spending so much time in those dens of iniquity like some common malefactor..." he heard Austria mutter and realized in a moment of brilliance that the aristocrat was actually jealous. Why else would he be down here using every dirty trick he had to get rid of the albums when half the time he couldn't care less what new directives the propaganda minister tossed down. Germany watched another Duke Ellington fly across the room with a wince. Hadn't he already assured him that he was the only one? That he had Germany's full sworn word and devotion, that- Well, the hell with that insecure- No, Austria may have been a lot of things but insecure was hardly one of them. He was calculating or controlling or some sort of other less flattering epithet that all boiled down to wanting Germany to dance like a damn puppet._

_And yet somehow even knowing all of that, even knowing that the man probably calculated every breath he took Germany couldn't help but be spellbound when Austria turned and looked at him over his shoulder, peering over the thin frames of those spectacles with a perfect mixture of seduction and frailty even though they both knew he was anything but. He looked for all the world like he didn't have Germany's semen drying on the insides of his thighs and that damn shirt was slipping even further off his shoulder. Austria knew exactly what he was doing when he licked his lips like an expectant feline and blinked ever so slowly while waiting for an answer. He shifted a leg, spreading himself ever so slightly and Germany knew that it was nothing but some chess like calculation and that Austria had likely planned out every move, every last detail down to the scratches on Germany's back and yet still he couldn't help himself._

_He could feel himself wavering, feel those eyes on him even as he shifted his gaze and looked away.  
"It's not… you know that it has nothing to do with the women…" He huffed in frustration and watched the cuckoo clock on the wall sway its pendulum back and forth. It was the last one he'd ever made and it was a reminder of the last time he felt truly free; somehow now it felt like even more of his freedom was slipping away.  
"Like them or not," Austria said as he rose with that careless air and turned around, "We have our directives that we're supposed to follow." He looked over the frames of those glasses again and Germany recalled Prussia telling him ages ago the man didn't need them to see, that he only wore them so he wouldn't look so plain; Germany wondered if it didn't make it easier to look down on people no matter where he stood. He wielded them with more proficiency than any sword and as his fingers threaded behind Germany's neck he could almost see his own reflection on the lenses. "You do know how to follow orders, don't you?"_

_"Of course I do." He could follow orders. He could follow orders better than either Austria or Prussia could, they who adhered to the rules only when it suited them. And as he felt Austria's body pressed flush to his, felt those bare legs against his own, warm and smooth and oddly like a woman's he wondered just whose orders Austria was following when he lay back on the bed in 1938 and let Germany take that which even he knew to be forbidden. But Germany didn't question. He didn't question when that Austrian came out of nowhere and rose to lead his people and he didn't question when people he'd known for years were labelled "undesirable" and purged from the party..  
"Can you?" Austria questioned with a tilt of his head and that challenging expression which never failed to make Germany feel insignificant and young, and even though he knew it was on purpose, that the other was only trying to goad him and make him lose control he still walked right into it. "You can't even control yourself enough to-"  
"Dammit, don't push me," Germany growled out, looking away because looking at him wasn't going to help._

_"Can't even control yourself enough to have a civilized conversation with your-"  
"Don't you dare say "lover" Roderich because if there's one thing-"  
"If there's one thing you do less adequately than the rest it's that." And he let go and turned to leave on that last note until Germany felt more than heard the pounding, the blood in his ears and the blur of his vision and he didn't even realize he'd moved until he found himself throwing Austria against the wall and holding him by the shoulders breathing heavily just trying to pull it together because he was better than this and it was only ever Austria who made him behave in such an out of control fashion with his damned scheming. And there Austria stood, defiant, the consummate ice prince looking through him as if he weren't even there because when he was the one in control there was no rattling him. Germany let go cursing himself as the other just sighed like he was wasting precious time. He didn't even need to say he was right because they both knew that he was._

_Germany was out of control when the Fuhrer and the rest of them had ordered a unified Third Reich come hell or high water and thrown Austria on his knees in front of him and his brother like a dog and he was out of control when Prussia stepped back and bowed out with a small smile and left it all to him. Germany was wrong and weak and Austria always knew how to push every last button with just the smallest gesture, the most icy and disinterested look and Austria was just so coldly beautiful and untouchable that it drove him to madness some nights. And even after Germany had learned to wring those breathless sighs from him, had learned to make him scream and claw at the sheets and beg him for more it was never enough and he wished he was strong enough to stand up to the pull of the blood between them and not fall before it._

_"I'll get rid of them, all of them," he answered firmly as the other turned his head away to avoid the mouth seeking contact against his own. Germany didn't question orders but he did silently rebel and even as Austria whispered almost nervously not to kiss him Germany's lips were close as he dared put themas his arms went around the waist of the man who was just that bit smaller than him but infinitely larger at the same time  
"You know I'd do for you what I'd do for no one else." Austria didn't even bother to smile at that. He simply nodded as if he'd expected no other outcome and indulged in a breathless sigh when Germany lowered him to the floor and took him again. _

Germany stands and walks over to the music player, determined to shut it off. "Surely you didn't come all this way to listen to this tra-"  
"Leave it on. Please?" Italy looks at the empty shelf next to the music player somewhat sadly. "If anyone gets mad we'll just say it was my idea, okay?" He smiles again. "After all, they can't get mad at a guest, right?" Although he tries, Germany finds he can't argue with that logic. Veneziano pats the empty space on the sofa next to him. "Here, sit. I had something else I wanted to give you." His brown eyes are completely focused on the blonde as he walks over. Germany is still only wearing a long pair of loose sleeping pants and Italy doesn't feel guilty as he stares and imagines what it might be like to touch those hard stomach muscles; he made sure to say a few Hail Marys before he came over tonight.

Reaching into the pocket of the coat next to him carelessly slung over the sofa arm, he lingers, enjoying the warmth of Germany's leg against his own and even the faint smell of beer and wurst that Romano can't stand.  
"Ah, hold on, hold on…" he says quickly knowing that Germany won't even question the delay. His hands brush the soft parcel, closing around it and pulling it out triumphantly. Germany can already tell it's likely another damn thing of pasta but as Italy unwraps it he realizes that it's far better than just another pound of macaroni. "I thought that you liked this one the last time I made it!" The gnocchi form a nice pile, the dusting of flour keeping the soft potato dumplings from sticking together. He reties the bundle triumphantly. "Should we cook it now? I know it's late but it's never too late for pasta, right?"

Germany shakes his head and finds his eyes and his mind wandering from the hands skillfully retying the package to the small pink mouth pursed in concentration. He wonders what it would be like to kiss him and curses Austria for ever opening the gateway to thoughts like these. Until 1938 he'd never looked at another man with anything other than a general's assessing eye and now he can feel his control slipping just from sitting so close to Italy on the couch. He forces himself to stop dissecting his friend with such a disgusting turn of thoughts and he almost prays -but what has a disillusioned Prussia ever taught him of prayer except that God is dead and answers no one- for Austria to come down.

Veneziano appears oblivious to the pale blue stare. Germany doesn't see his eyes flicker up and he can't hear his heart pounding faster. He only sees him finish retying the package and lean back to stare up at the ceiling.  
"What if… what if I said I wouldn't take no for an answer?" And for one crazy moment Germany wonders if he isn't talking about something other than pasta but that's an area that he knows neither of them can explore so he simply sighs and glances at the clock.  
"You always make such a mess. Surely you…" And he sees North Italy still looking up at the ceiling, still not look at him with his eyes closed. Germany wonders if he hasn't fallen asleep but his grip on the package isn't lax. No, he reaches out and puts it on Germany's lap, a small smile on his face as he does so and falling back into the familiar routine Germany just growls in predictable annoyance and stands. And then he feels a hand taking his and he looks down and realizes that Veneziano is looking down and not up just smiling so sadly he almost insists on cooking the stuff and letting him bake some biscotti just for a little less depressing atmosphere.

"I'm kidding Ludwig. I know that... I know that you wouldn't want to wake up Roderich." He lets go before Germany can say anything and although everyone assumes he's stupid, he does have a feeling that whatever is going on between the two of them isn't exactly normal or something that he's supposed to know about. He's sure it's something that he doesn't **want** to know so he just pretends that he doesn't and wipes the sad expression from his face and half stares at the clock on the wall. "Did I ever tell you once when I was young and lived in his house that I tried to cook some tira misu in the middle of the night? And I was almost finished when he woke up and saw the mess." North Italy laughs and shakes his head. "I think he screamed loud enough to wake the entire house." And as he talks he also pretends that Germany wasn't there also because The Holy Roman Empire is dead and never coming back and even if he did it would be damnation to repeat the old sins he'd committed in ignorance in the past.

"Dance with me?" Italy asks his eyes turning back to the invisible heavens. Germany isn't quite sure that he heard him correctly, although he's long grown used to such asinine suggestions and doesn't even question that he probably did.  
"I don't... surely you can think of something more appropriate. Really, I could eat right now and it would probably be..." It would be far better for Austria to see one and not the other. And in one ear he can hear Prussia telling him that dancing is a waste of time for soldiers unless they're trying to impress a woman and in the other he can hear Austria lecturing him on how such an intimate act shouldn't be treated with such a cavalier attitude. Austria, he's learned, will more willingly share his body for fornication than for dancing.

"Please?" he hears asked more insistently. "Just for a little bit? It's kinda scary around here, Ludwig. At the dance halls in Munich we used to go to, they say that the Fhrer doesn't want the people dancing like this. And I know you used to have the records even if you don't anymore and-"  
"Feli, forget you ever saw those." Germany sighs and doesn't look at the empty shelf. "Forget dancing like some..." he can't even remember the words the minister had used but whatever it was it wasn't what a good German did and-  
"I'm not asking, now, Ludwig." Italy stands in front of him smiling but determined as he holds a hand out. Germany takes it in spite of himself.

"There's no girls but... it's just us, so... that's okay, right?" Veneziano speaks softly as if convincing himself of something as he pulls him into the center of the large living room. "Let me flip it to the B side." He's much happier as he turns the record over. "Ve~ I know you can lindy, Ludwig, so let's see it." The drums start up in a fast tempo and Germany smiles at the challenge.  
"Alright, fine, you win. But do you think you can keep up?"  
"Haha! You're on Potato Head!" Germany can't help but laugh at the ridiculous nickname and starts to swing his arms in time as the trumpets join into the song vibrantly. He feels absurd, dancing with a Black Shirt at two in the morning in his sleeping pants and bare feet but it feels wonderful and free and he feels lighter than air as his feet kick up and back and he can forget that he's a soldier or a nation or anything but Ludwig Beilschmidt again.

In one moment Italy is next to him, their arms around each other's waists, kicking up the steps and he can hear in his mind the raucous joy of the halls in Munich and cries of "Swing Heil" from the youth that use to gather there. Italy whirls to face him and Germany makes the first move. He steps to the side, his large hands encircle that slim waist, and with ease he flips him backwards.  
"Ah!" Italy laughs as he lands and takes Germany's hands again, spinning underneath. His expression is challenging and while Germany might have reservations about his performance on the battlefield he knows his partner will meet him head on here.

"Ve~ Ludwig~ Catch me!" he cries letting himself fly away with the melody. Veneziano releases his hands, grabs onto his shoulders, and leaps. Unconsciously, Germany finds his waist once more and lifts him almost to the ceiling. Veneziano, with legs akimbo straddles him as he comes down, letting Germany hold his weight in the backbreaking dip. Germany has no choice but to follow him down, before pulling him back up. Italy lands, not missing a beat as the song continues. "Ah, you're so strong it's amazing!"  
"I'm surprised you haven't gotten too fat to lift from all that pasta you eat!" Germany quips. Italy grins in response.  
"I'm in better shape than you think!" He spins again, their backs flush to each other and anticipating the next move. Germany allows their arms to interlock and gives his body just enough buoyancy to be flipped over.

He lands and exhales in a rush, a rare and easy smile appearing on his face. The place where their hands meet again is warm and alive. The song winds down from a final crescendo and breathless and flushed, he pulls Italy to him. For the first time it seems that Italy realizes that his hands, sweaty and trembling are firmly on Germany's hard chest and even as he looks at them he makes no move to step away. The music stops entirely and the only sound in the still of the night is their intermingled breathing. Veneziano still doesn't look at him, however, instead his eyes are fixated on the iron cross hanging around Germany's neck.

_Deus meus, credo in te, spero in te..._ It comes to him conditioned and unbidden from so many nights sequestered away when he was young and trying to make sense of a death that seemed so senseless.  
"Ludwig?" He whispers softly, still staring at the onyx symbol with trepidation. "You're not..." he swallows, feeling his heart about to thud out of his chest. _Amo te super omnia ex tota anima mea, ex toto corde meo, ex totis viribus meis... _Germany doesn't say anything and digging his fingers into the muscles, Italy finishes. "You're not a... a _finocchio_, right?" He doesn't pull away waiting for the answer, praying that Germany understands because he can't give voice to that word again and especially not in Their language, which makes saying the word to feel like a sin in itself, not when The Holy See- who now wears a duel hat as Vatican City- always told him it was the language surely spoken by God Himself.

Germany doesn't understand the word at first, trying to think, trying to remember. When it comes to him he immediately thinks of the man upstairs and he knows that he probably still smells of sex and Austria and that Italy has to be just so terribly nave to ask him in such earnest. But no! No he's definitely not a... one of those because they're purging the Fatherland of undesirables and faggots and that was why they'd killed Rohm dammit and he'd never even looked at a man with lust until Austria had to... to... he'd never lain with **anyone** before and just one... just one or a hundred slip ups didn't mean he was like that and his brother would tell him that "fucking that stupid sissy girl aristocrat didn't count anyway" and it was his cousin and it was like having sex with himself because of the blood they shared and that just had to be the reason why Austria ran through his veins like some sort of drug whenever he was near him except that it was forbidden but everything anymore was forbidden and he wanted to kiss someone because even as he spilled his seed into Austria he couldn't kiss him because Austria couldn't stand to kiss anyone on the mouth and...  
"No. Never." Germany says at last and allows his arms to encircle his smaller partner's waist. Veneziano still doesn't look at him and it makes him wonder just how wrong this act between the two of them might be as well.

_Amo te quia es infinite bonus et dignus qui ameris._  
"Good. That's good then..." He finally forces himself to look up into those ice blue eyes. Except right now they're not ice and they're not hard and cutting but blue like the sky in summer over Milan. "Then it's okay if I... if we..." He stops talking and impulsively, recklessly, brings his right hand up, fingers ghosting over the corded muscle of Germany's neck and he doesn't think about how much his brother would hate him if he knew what he were doing now. Because Romano has always been of the mind that if he can't have something then no one can, and this will just have to be some little secret between them because he really does love his brother above almost everything else even if he teases him and doesn't always introduce him in the most flattering light. _Et quia amo te, me paeitet ex toto corde te offendisse. _

It's **his** hand that guides Germany's head down to bring their lips together because just for a few moments he can feign childish ignorance about men and women and sin and pretend that the Holy Roman Empire is marching off to war that final time to die for the both of them. And North Italy tilts his head just slightly and rises up on the balls of his feet because if he's going to repent later he's going to make it worth it. Both part their lips, sharing a breath, sharing life in an instant and he can feel the connection of their borders and the shared blood of their people and Veneziano thinks in this wild moment that he's never kissed a girl with such wild abandon as the pads of his hands dig into Germany's shoulders and he holds on for dear life. And he thinks to himself that drowning in a sea of wurst might not be so bad after all and that he could learn to love German beer if it tasted like this and he wonders why everything good seems to be wrong. And it's then, as he feels that stirring, that awakening of his body as his every sense become hyper aware of the tick of the clock and the heavy breathing of the man in front of him that he pulls back, flushed and half terrified as the beautiful madness dies down all too soon. Italy is the first to turn away, shaking like a leaf. _Miserere mihi peccatori._

"I kissed a boy once," he says removing his hands and stepping back fumbling blindly for his coat as he crosses himself. "But he..." he trails off and swallows hard as he just can't seem to arrange his coat the right way to get dressed. Because he can't stay. Because he can hear Romano in one ear and the old man in the other condemning him and he can see the fire that haunted his dreams and really he just needs a little air because somehow it seems like Roman's there even though that can't be possible. _"He burned up like a sinner. Do you think that God spares the ignorant? No, he spares no one who hasn't been cleansed, who hasn't repented and even we aren't above his laws, my son."_ The Holy See's words had haunted him in the darkness and yet he found that it renewed his faith, that holding the rosary and the scapula had granted him strength in his darkest hour and if God hasn't deserted him yet then it's only fair that he re-devote himself in return.

"What- happened to him?" Germany asks, feeling nauseous when he hears the footsteps above them. He knows that there won't be a dramatic confrontation this time because he knows Austria's patterns and his habits so well it's almost frightening. He doesn't wonder anymore about his brother's fixation on their cousin because he can count down the exact time when Austria will descend the stairs and shoot him just one measured look before going to the kitchen. There's silence as Veneziano gathers his coat and walks to the door and Germany just barely stops himself from reaching out. North Italy's hand misses the knob the first time and when he finally grasps it, he holds it tightly until his knuckles turn white, his head bowed, whispering something indecipherable to himself softy before replying,  
"He died."

This chapter occurs right after the invasion of Poland.

Black Shirts were Mussolini's paramilitary group. They were the main tool of his political movement.

Il Duce refers to Benito Mussolini, the Italian Prime Minister who basically held all the power in Italy in WWII until his assassination (Although Victor Emmanuel was still king) The quote Italy uses was one of their slogans actually borrowed from a French general.

Nazi Music Ban- under the Nazi regime, music had to adhere to a certain "German" standard and anything that didn't was prohibited. The three master composers that represented "good" German music were Beethoven, Wagner, and Bruckner. Jazz music was offensive to Nazi ideology as many prominent musicians were black or Jewish.

Schubert was an Austrian composer that (in my opinion) bears an eerie resemblance to Austria.

The dance halls in Munich refer to the Nazi counterculture swing movement prominent amongst German youth in the 1930s. "Swing Heil" was a slogan in answer to the Nazi "Sieg Heil"

Ernst Rohm was the leader of the SA and more or less openly homosexual. During the Night of the Long Knives, there was a massive purging of the SA in part to "clean up" the Nazi party of undesirables, and in another part to supposedly suppress a plot against Hitler.

The prayer running through Italy's mind during this is the prayer of penance in Latin. Translated it says: My God, I believe in Thee, I hope in Thee, I love Thee above all things with all my soul, with all my heart and with all my strength; I love Thee because Thou art infinitely good and worthy of being loved; and because I love Thee, I repent with all my heart of having offended Thee; have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.


	5. A Servant of Evil

Note: A warning for strong and possibly offensive language. My apologies for the long hiatus. I had some issues finding a new beta but many thanks to my beta Jazz and everyone still reading. C&C is always welcome as well. I'm not always the most objective judge of my own work haha.

5

"A Servant of Evil"

_We'll try to stay blind_

_To the hope and fear outside_

_Hey child, stay wilder than the wind_

_And blow me into cry_

_Who do you need, who do you love_

_When you come undone?_

_- Duran Duran "Come Undone"_

Berlin, Germany

Hohenzollern Castle

November 30th, Present Day

"Thank you, young man." The woman takes the carefully wrapped package of gingerbread hearts from his fingers. Germany smiles, remembering a young girl standing at a similar stall holding her mother's hand some forty years earlier. He returns the smile easily. Behind him Prussia is starting to put away the unsold merchandise as an older woman comes up to pay.

"You know I have a daughter about your age," she hints as he finishes giving her change, and he finds himself getting somewhat red in the face and she starts to describe her in far more detail than any man or nation ought to be privy to.

"Ah, thank you ma'am, I'm flattered but-"

"-my baby brother's spoken for." Prussia appears next to him unexpectedly an arm slung casually over his shoulder seeming amused with the entire situation. "Yup, such a shame too; he's just such a cute little fellow isn't he?" Prussia pinches his cheek and both he and the woman share a laugh as Germany huffs and glares at Prussia.

"Ah, of course, they always are," she says with a shake of her head. Germany splutters indignantly before shoving his brother away, thoroughly red faced as she leaves.

"That's the fifth one today! Do you really have to do that every time?!" he exclaims as the crowd slowly continues back to their vehicles. Prussia's eyes dart to the people far too occupied with their purchases and the children chasing snowflakes to pay them any mind.

His mouth is at Germany's ear; his ability to insinuate himself in his brother's personal space has only been turned into a finally honed craft over the years.

"But it's only the truth, little brother," he teases with a hot rush of breath and a playful lick and Germany shivers. He turns his head away after seconds of hesitation.

"You're too reckless, Gilbert," he chastises softly without any real heat. The fire's gone down to his stomach where Prussia deftly slides a hand between the large brass buttons of the black coat and rubs at his chest through the shirt he's wearing. The only response he receives is a chuckle.

"Reckless? In seventy years, West, they've never once fucked with us."

Because there's nothing there.

Because there's nothing between them but the bond between two brothers and whatever perversions America and Canada might be up to, isolated on the other side of the world, have nothing to do with **them**. France might have a fucking hard on for Austria and see shadows and ghosts where there are none but that doesn't make it real and that doesn't make his feelings for Germany anything other than completely normal. Prussia has never been shy when it comes to his brother, but last time he checked that wasn't a sin. Veneziano might have confirmed years ago that there was nothing between himself and Germany and America might've made one stupid joke too many but all that doesn't add up to damnation and fire. Prussia frowns, a hand raised to toy with his brother's slightly mussed hair stilling with an odd reflection. He loves his brother. That's all there's ever been to it...

"_Brother?" Germany's voice had called to him softly, the deep baritone unusually timid and uncertain. Prussia looked up with a start from the scratchy cot to see the large outline in the darkness. He said that he preferred to sleep in the barracks with the men. He said that he felt more comfortable now that they were in the midst of a war. He didn't say that he couldn't stand hearing his brother fucking that little piano playing faggot almost every night in the next room. He didn't say that the stupid little bitch sounded enough like a girl- 'cause that was the only, the __**only **__reason- that it made his dick hard and kept him up at night. He didn't say that the sight of the two of them through the keyhole lay behind his closed eyes at night replaying in an odd silent reel- or even when Austria looked at him knowingly with those eyes. Prussia didn't say a lot of things, really no matter what that Austrian bitch liked to say about his lack of a brain to mouth filter. He simply took the bag and left and didn't look back when Germany watched him from the bedroom window like a man imprisoned. "Are you awake?" He had slowly put the gun back under the pillow and sat up more relaxed, the old instincts slowly getting back under control._

"_Yeah, I'm up." He slung his legs over the side of the cot wearing nothing but a pair of shorts even in the cold of winter. Germany stood in the doorway letting the cold air blow in and although he couldn't believe his brother was really there, he rose and went over to him nonetheless. "Christ, I thought you were in Poland dealing with that mess." Prussia was thankful the place was empty with everyone still out drinking as he padded across the cold floor. He didn't need any of them asking any questions because there was no way they could speak freely in German. Well hell, Prussia usually joined them but at 4am right now he was trying to fucking sleep. He hadn't hesitated the last war to get completely falling over drunk every night but shit maybe he was getting old after all._

_Germany still hadn't responded even as his brother stood in front of him. Prussia could see the blue eyes darting nervously around, could see those fists clenching and unclenching, the normally pristine uniform disheveled and he practically yanked him inside. "Jesus, give the whole barracks a show why don't you?" he grumbled to himself hoping that no one else had seen because inevitably there were always questions and those usually led to answers that none of these damn humans ever believed._

"_I can't do this," Germany said at last as Prussia closed the door and looked back at him standing in the same spot. Prussia examined him more closely as he watched the floor and saw the shaking, the pallor even in the faint moonlight through the window. He also thought he saw the reddened eyes and drying trails of- no. No way in hell he'd been crying; it must've been a trick of the light. His brother didn't fucking cry like a little bitch. He didn't even scream when they were cutting the two of them open in Versailles and if fucking Austria never cried in a thousand years then surely his own brother was made of sterner stuff than that._

"_Hey I was kidding yeah?" He could see those shuddering breaths and stepped around trying for some kinda damage control, looking away out the window, scratching his stomach uncomfortably as he watched the moon just peeking out from behind the clouds. He didn't need his brother falling the fuck apart on him. Not now when they were just getting started on the greatest conquest that either of them would ever know. "I mean if they wanna say something who cares, right? It's not like those perverts in charge aren't-"_

"_I can't do this Gilbert." And Prussia snapped his head up as if he'd just heard the firing of a gunshot "It's... it's not the same like it was in the last war. It's not... I'm not... I can't kill innocent people in cold blood like this..." He took a few more steps instinctively seeking out Prussia's cot and sank down onto it. He held his head between his hands, his hair unkempt and falling into his eyes. Prussia absently fingered the iron cross around his own neck as he sat down next to him._

_"You knew that Operation Tannenburg was gonna get your hands dirty, Ludi." He fished beneath the pillow for the coveted pack of cigarettes, Germany still sitting next to him on the scratchy cot looking out the window at the cloudless sky when he finally lifted his head again. He winced when Prussia turned on the bedside lamp looking for a match. "You want it?" he asked after lighting up and taking a drag that probably looked far too ecstatic. "You look like you need it."_

"_You know how the Fuhrer feels about those," came the automatic chastisement and Prussia couldn't help but chuckle._

"_Yeah well I don't see his happy ass goose stepping in here to stop me so-"_

_"Christ can you be serious for once!? Do you have any idea what's going on out there?! Do you know what they're-"_

"_Hey! You listen to me, _bruderchen_. You're gonna lecture me about being serious? I'm not living it up with my little _schlampe _in Berlin, yeah? I'm here where I oughta be: fighting. I'm not parading around like the Fuhrer's little Aryan golden boy kissing babies and cutting ribbons so let me have my fucking cigarettes, yeah. C'mon, Ludi, I know you're better than this. You proved yourself in the last war so why don't you man up and stop acting like a little prissy bitch when it comes to a little _bluet ein issen_."_

"_You go too far, Gilbert..." He heard the words spoken a token protest that his brother often made when he seemed to think that somehow Prussia had either overstepped himself or wasn't in fact assessing the situation with the gravity it deserved. But as Prussia took another drag and Germany turned his head to make another comment, the remainder of the chastisement seemed to die on his lips as those red eyes fixed on him seriously._

"_Are you backing out on me Ludi? You gonna leave me and specs to finish this fucker? Cause let me tell you that little bitch might piss and moan but he's fucking heartless when he needs to be. I thought of everyone on our side you were made of tougher shit than that." He absently flicked the ash into the ancient porcelain ashtray on the nightstand voice lowering as if that might guard against any who would hear. "You having those nightmares again or something? Those crazy dreams about the holy wars 'cause you know They'd be more than happy to dope you up to the eyeballs if you can't deal with it or-" _

"_No it wasn't. You don't… __**understand**__..." He took a deep breath, staring at the green wall, hands on his knees like an overgrown child struggling for just the right words not knowing that Prussia understood good and damn well what he was talking about, knew every rotten miserable thing going through his mind and just didn't want him to fucking say it out-. "I mean the orders… the __**orders**_ _they hand down without..." he choked and Gilbert just watched him silently. "Liquidate, Gilbert. They talk about people like furniture in a warehouse or like… _Verdammit _we're not slaughtering pigs!" He blinked, one hand groping blindly from his knee to his brother and Prussia put a hand over his hoping none of the guys came back cause if he thought the shit they used to say when they were kids was bad... He swore softly under his breath for that moment unable to face Germany because he knew in the moment just what the fuck he was asking and knew at the same time that to walk through the baptism of blood was the only way his brother could ever be like the rest of them._

"_Christ I keep forgetting how fucking young you are." Younger than he should be and a lot less hardened no thanks to fucking France and that who- he shook his head. He wasn't gonna think about all that shit now because his brother was here and whole and had no idea of the things they needed to be capable of to succeed. And no doubt he was imagining things to be a lot worse than they were anyway 'cause Prussia had seen the overfed old farts they had in the _einsatzgruppen _who couldn't kill a mother cat let alone compare to the iron warriors he'd one led to… Nevermind that. He'd forgotten how much his brother had really lost when he felt Germany squeeze his hand until he thought it would break and that ragged voice was whispered, "Can I sleep with you- just for tonight, brother?"_

_Prussia blinked, looking at the walls somehow knowing that the monsters wouldn't stay away forever wishing like hell that God would just leave him the fuck alone thinking in one brilliant moment of self-awareness that if he was to fall into sin now it would be for his brother and no one else, that if he were to exalt anyone above the God who'd failed him then it would be- He hadn't even realized he'd been clutching the iron cross with his free hand until he felt the warmth surrounding his calloused palm and felt the ash fall to his bare leg. His attention was still focused on the wall- trees playing demons for shadows. He said nothing even as he turned his head. He kept his eyes averted, flickering them almost nervously as he let go of the cross and put the butt out on the royal crest in the center of that chipped ashtray. _

_It was fitting really, he thought as he felt the wound on his palm close up with a rapidness it never had even during the most brilliant age of the Prussian Empire. 'Cause that empire was fucking dead and theirs would last a thousand years just he and his brother and he wasn't even thinking about violet eyes when he brought his brother's head down, bowed just enough to brush his cold lips over Germany's forehead. He didn't understand yet but he would._

"_What are you doing," came the soft whisper though Germany made no move to pull away from him._

"_Do you remember?... Maybe you don't but do you remember when she..." he didn't say their mother because he was sure that if he could recall nothing more than the soft lilt of her voice and the warmth of her touch Germany with his fragmented memories wouldn't remember half that much. He laughs almost nervously. "She used to say that a kiss would make anything better."_

"_You… you always were so terribly inappropriate, Gil." _

_It was the way he said his name. It was the way that flicker of recognition beyond the present was in his eyes that made Prussia so fucking desperate to make him remember. He didn't care if he remembered Italy then. He didn't care if he remembered Austria because if he remembered them then he'd have to remember… For that moment the man seated in front of him was no longer that distant stranger he'd become ever since he was reborn a man. Prussia was watching his brother, his Ludwig- not Germany- who always knew, who always understood, always forgave him and only ever looked at him and... And he drowned. Prussia felt his fingers smooth that half mussed fine blonde hair with all the intimacy he'd held back from everyone else he'd ever touched in his life. He felt his fingers tangle, felt spider silk sticky beneath them and just somehow __**felt**_ _those blue eyes lift to meet his even before he met that perfect searching expression with one of his own. But Prussia never hesitated and never faltered where his brother was concerned- where everything was right and every dystrophic damnation was reduced to nothing but the skin beneath his fingertips. _

_Prussia saw Germany's lips move and whatever his brother said in that instant was lost to the fire. It was lost to the blood and it was lost to the need to possess. It brought their lips together in a brief, bare joining. He could feel the power, feel the German Empire, feel the Third Reich passing deathless and ageless between the two of them and felt that surge of adrenaline like he was back on the front lines cutting down every enemy that stood between them and divinity. It was conquest when he had a sword and pistol in hand- when he held death like a newborn child- and when for the first time in their existence the two brothers breathed their essences into each other in mutual power. It was a whole lot of poetic bullshit but most of all it was Germany gripping Prussia's shoulders hard as if to throw him off but instead holding fast to him like he was the only thing left in the universe._

"_We used to share a bed, didn't we, Ludi?" Prussia asked feeling nostalgic and bitter and a thousand other fucking things he wasn't about to try and put a name to. Their foreheads were pressed together, their noses touched, mouths just the barest length apart and the air was crazy fucking warm between them and Prussia could feel Germany not looking at him. As well as he knew his brother he knew that Germany was trying to remember, trying to reach through that weird veil of death that separated the past from the present. And as he almost thought it was another one of those eternally vanished moments he felt Germany tense and in some maddened automation he dropped his hands to that strong back and felt the rigid muscles, felt a helluva lot more than he should've and his mouth was to the shell of his brother's ear whispering low,_

"_But I guess that's just something else you forgot." His grip was tight, almost angry but he wasn't letting go for anything in the damn world right now. Let anyone see. Let them be damned 'cause this was their world now. This was __**their**_ _empire reborn and no one else and even Austria was the last thing on his mind the ghost of violet eyes drowning beneath Leviathan flooding the world around them. And Germany didn't answer him, didn't say anything but let go and pulled back just enough to look him straight in the eye as if he were making some final damning judgment. Except this time Prussia wasn't going to be banished, cursed, what the fuck ever. Because if this was the last moment that either of them would exist then let it be-_

"_Heh, you've really gotten to be big haven't you?"_

"_You always talk such nonsense."_

_Then let it be done._

Germany slaps at his hands as he lets one fall and brings the other up to undo the buttons in the shadow of the stall where they won't be noticed.

"C'mon, West, let's give 'em something to really talk about, yeah?"

"Gilbert I don't think…"

"Yeah, don't think. That's a good idea." Germany grumbles to himself softly and after a brief moment of indulgence in the touch he forcibly removes Prussia's hand.

"Yes, it's done such wonders for you, brother," He sighs, gripping Prussia's wrists firmly before letting go, mouth thin with disapproval. "At least not here. God, can't you wait 'til we get home?" He ducks his head to hide his embarrassment beneath the unfaltering answering stare and begins to pack up the gingerbread hearts. Prussia laughs as he goes back to his own box. He can't help the way his eyes flicker to the strong, broad back and shoulders as Germany works quickly and efficiently. Germany is his and his relationship with his brother never has been and never will be anyone else's fucking business. They'll never understand what's between the two of them without having to pervert it like everything else.

He thinks little more about it as he pours on the charm, knowing that his boss has oddly high expectations for a man determined not to reclaim what should rightfully be his. The crowd eventually fades down to nothing, the hearts are soon packed up, and the temperature drops. It seems to feel colder than the forecast called for and he pats his pockets for gloves. With a soft curse he finds them in his hand and Germany says nothing, only turns away and puts on his own. Prussia silently puts a hand on his brother's shoulder. They face away from each other, but even so Germany puts a calloused hand over his. Somehow through the fabric that warmth is still there and he can't help but pull away too quickly.

"So West, place your bet. What are the odds that they're playing another one of their stupid little games?" He refers of course to America and Canada, the conversation with Austria still fresh in his mind. It affords him another focus and Germany drops his hand again and takes a box.

"Whatever happens, Gilbert, just remember it was your idea to involve us in their business." Well really, It was stupid Austria's but that's neither here nor there and Germany has always had a blind spot where Austria is concerned. Germany has always been afraid of the fire as well. Prussia is tense for a moment as he thinks of Hamburg and the scars and even further back than that knowing that he can't quite fault him.

"Hah! What's life without a little batshit craziness, West?" That careful expression blinks off and his grin is wide as he takes a box and deliberately bumps his brother. The small smile on Germany's face as he looks at him in return is all the confirmation he needs. He can do this. The damned already know what it's like to fall from heaven.

_Staring at the swirling water, Prussia wondered not for the first time if the water would circle the other way if they were in Australia. He'd asked his boss the same question the night they'd gotten thoroughly wasted following his ascension to the throne. The Prince had laughed before telling him he really didn't know and he really couldn't afford to fly them there to check. Prussia suggested they invade the Koala loving motherfucker- all in jest of course- and after that he couldn't recall ever really getting along with the man. But George Friedrich was his boss and his will in most of these matters wasn't his own 'cause he learned the hard way years ago that to go against one's boss no matter how much of a bastard or a coward was really not a terribly good idea._

_Not that he felt that great being forced to attend these conferences as a sham of a nation. He had no idea why the man thought this would be "good for him"-Germany spoke for the both of them now anyway- but then again the prince had no idea what it felt like to not really be a true nation and to feel that odd tug like one was being pulled out of time and out of one's body and Jesus Christ he needed to get a grip because the room was starting to spin again and he was a hell of a lot stronger than this bullshit. Stronger than pride, stronger than death, stronger than the whole lot of those eviscerated godlings down the hall, Prussia rose, straightened his shirt, wiped the sweat from his forehead, shut his eyes, and reminded himself that he needed to be here. Right here, right now because all the pieces were about to fall into place and according to Austria if he didn't really want the lot of them to burn he- _

_Prussia heard the door open and there was a blink and there he was on the closed lid, feet propped up against the door, head between his knees willing the fucking room to stop spinning because he couldn't imagine his brother's face if he blacked out or.._. _He wasn't sure he recognized the shoes until he heard a soft voice that was unmistakably Canada. Prussia licked his lips and found in that moment that odd center of calm as everything snapped into place. If it was just as Austria said then any moment there should be one more. Hearing sharp, eyes alert, pupils shaking with the tiniest tremor as the rest of them stilled, he listened. He listened because his damn life depended on it and Georgie Porgie might be thrilled to pieces to ride the coattails of Kaiser Wilhelm into the fucking board room but Prussia was eternal and Prussia-_

"_Al, what the hell is your-" Bingo. Prussia heard the voice cut off and heard the sound of heavy breathing and shoes scuffling on the tile from a brief short lived struggle. He heard the two of them moan and cast a withering look to his dick for daring to stir at the sound. _

_Christ his nerves must have been under far less control than he thought because... 'Focus. Focus because these idiots are clearly too reckless for their own good. Do they even know the damn fucking camera is...' But it wasn't. In fact he blinked again slowly and saw their feet and realized that they were in the exact blind spot of the security camera set to watch the door- he'd checked it himself when he came in. So it wasn't their first time doing this here. He bit his thumb and looked thoughtful, looked curious because last he remembered England's two little golden children weren't- _

"_Fuck, Mattie why did you have to wear that today? That ugly tan suit of yours finally dry rot off?"_

"_**You**_ _told me that you like seeing me dressed like this andyoudon'thavetoinsultmyclothes so I don't know why-"_

"_For me! Not for them!" A pause and he wasn't sure how much he really ought to try and see. But he could hear enough and in a way that was far worse than just seeing it because in his mind he could conjure up all sorts of- "Christ, I couldn't stand the way they were looking at you." That was America again and Prussia forced himself to breathe because his palms were __**not**_ _sweating cause cause two incestuous north American faggots didn't amount to a hill of-_

"_They didn't see me Al," bitter, angry. "They never see me with you always standing in front of me."_

"_I see you, Mattie," sounded somewhat breathless and the feet moved, shuffled a little more but carefully seeming oh so carefully. "Or isn't that enough for you anymore?"_

"_Maybeit'stoomuch," in another rush and another dance of shoes._

"_I love you, Mattie... God I love you so fucking much." America's voice was half muffled, and the sound of sloppy kissing could be heard as he spoke. "…'xactly what you were doing."_

"_I like it when you look at me like that." Canada breathed the response in a rush and he could hear their mouths connecting again and he repositioned himself so he could see if only to make the ridiculous picture somehow less so. "I hate it when you ignore me." More moans; more Canada than America and he hated that somehow he knew that. "…inconsiderate..." Harder kiss and Prussia put a hand to his groin only to still that ridiculous response to what the stupid thing had to mistake for a woman with Canada's soft speaking because that was the __**only**_ _way that he would have such a response. "I should." Back hitting the wall; again Canada. "Ignore you." Whimper bitten back behind a finger; why the hell did he know so damn much about that sissy!? "Oh God…"The sound of two bodies rutting against each other permeated the room and Prussia was both morbidly fascinated by how crazy they were while now trying to will his cock to go soft. _Fucking tight pants. Like West couldn't throw another load in before we left? S'too hot in here... yeah, that's what it is. _He crossed himself. Christ like he wasn't already going to hell if such a thing existed without needing to add __**that**_ _to the list and he looked now only because he couldn't stand not to._

_Austria told him he'd warned the two how fucking dangerous it was to even think about looking at each other like that where anyone could see; clearly he pussy footed around and didn't lay it out straight. But then again he wasn't exactly trying to do his good deed for the day; Austria never did anything without an ulterior motive. _

'_If my suspicions are correct then they would be the only other ones in the world…' Cover. Yeah, he wasn't as dumb as the rest of them would believe. What did any of them ever know about him but what he let them see? And just like now. 'You better fucking appreciate this, Ludi 'cause the whole world is gonna see this shit.' See him and America if all went as it should. See Canada and Austria. 'Two little sissies are fucking perfect for one another…' He swallowed the odd taste of bile and shook his head. This was a bad idea. This was his gut instinct- which Austria might scoff was no better than China's throwing of bones- telling him that those two would be their ruin and not their salvation. Prussia knew better. Prussia could hear it in the way America spoke, could feel the ghost of the memory of the madness fifty years ago returning to know that this would end just as badly. They were fucked. The whole lot of them and brilliant violent eyes flashed in his mind almost like a subconscious cue. 'Enough of this garbage. You're a soldier after all. Just do it already.'_

_Prussia dropped his feet silently and put a hand to the door because this was getting fucking ridiculous where anyone could walk in. He was about to come out and tell them flat out if they didn't want to be set on fucking fire they better keep it in their pants and the last thing anyone wanted to hear while they were trying to take a dump was the two of them going at it like this was a fucking porno. His hand stilled, feet quickly going back up when the footsteps were heard outside the door. The two broke away hurried; America already moved to the urinals and Canada made to leave, almost getting hit by the door as it opened stammering apologies as he effectively blocked the intruder's line of sight. The dumb fuck probably didn't even see him._

_Still, Prussia was almost impressed. _

"_S-sorry again," Canada murmured before exiting and Prussia squinted, trying to recognize the brown shoes that passed the stall. America's dick must've been shocked limp because Prussia already heard him pissing. The stream was joined by a second and he still wasn't sure who it was. It wasn't someone he recognized just by the cadence of their step which didn't necessarily rule out anyone dangerous. No one said a word and he knew that idiot couldn't read the atmosphere worth a damn but-_

"_So this is where you ran off to." He heard a voice say at last: Greece. _

"_Yeah. Figured I'd beat it before all the crazy turned back on me, hah." Like that forced laugh was fooling anyone. "Guess Mattie had the same idea. Y'know, always copying me and-"He wasn't sure why America trailed off but for that time the noise stopped and there was no way he could bend and see where they were without removing ribs or giving himself up so he just stilled his breathing and listened cause Greece never seemed to be able to raise his voice for shit._

"_It's been awhile hasn't it," America said at last with a soft sincerity that still somehow wasn't out of place._

"_Hmm… I woke up when it was loud and then I realized…" There was a soft yawn. "I realized you weren't there." But no mention of Canada and it was curious._

"_Heh, didn't know you still…" Somehow he could almost feel America look away._

"_There's a lot you don't know, isn't there?" Greece answered cryptically yet somehow it seemed to have some quiet poignancy for America._

"_I shouldn't have… Heracles, I-" And then there was more muffled what the fuck ever. Christ his foot was gonna fall asleep at this rate._

"_I've been watching that show of yours and New Zealand's." Was the first thing he was able to hear loudly over the sound of the flushing and it died away and he wondered what might've been said in the interim. Christ, Austria owed him big for this shit. "It's interesting…" Still about the show or whatever and his brow furrowed trying to call to mind what the hell was going on between the two of them. Last he heard they had one of the ugliest breakups in history that didn't end up in a war. Course that was almost thirty years ago and he tried not to think about that time._

"_Yeah, it's pretty cool, isn't it?" His voice dropped and was oddly soft, almost. "I learned a lot from you... back then."_

"_Ah, it that so?" he heard Greece ask, the both of them moving to the sink. He had to strain to hear him speaking over the running water, precariously balanced on the toilet as he leaned. He didn't think he'd missed anything though seeing Greece looking down at his hands before looking all weird at the mirror. "Do you remember the story I told you about Narcissus." He couldn't see but somehow he knew that America had gone still._

"_Yeah." He swallowed. "Yeah I do." They were both silent, America unusually contemplative as if remembering something bittersweet. "Hey ah... I gotta go. Ludwig's probably whipped everyone back into shape so..." Prussia couldn't see them, try as he might through the crack on the door. No, wait, if he moved he could just make out Greece putting a damp hand to the side of America's face. America's blue eyes were wide._

"_The beautiful young man who scorned the one who loved him... and fell in love with his own reflection." He could see Greece lean in, and as the water saver faucets shut off, he could hear Greece whisper, practically against America's stunned mouth, "You remember what happened to him don't you?" Prussia could hear the sharp intake of breath and saw America whirl as Greece moved to dry his hands. He couldn't hear what was said between them over the sound of the airdryer. He only saw America turn away ashen faced as Greece made his exit. America didn't see the half turn back, and the sad green eyes that looked at him for only a passing moment. So that was the warning America had any sense in his head he'd heed it. But then Prussia wouldn't be here right now, would he?_

_Prussia exhaled sharply as he gave up all pretense of hiding. Austria was right, fuck him. The Americans were too reckless and too out of control. It had gone unsaid that an alliance could be their downfall as easily as their salvation and the lot of them were just fucked enough to have to trust them weren't they? No, they were the last ones on earth who'd betray them. He almost laughed. Prussia's boots were loud as they slammed down on the floor and one rose to kick the door open dramatically. Let the fucking cameras watch. Let them see everything and let them see Prussia being a perfect little faggot if he had to. England would be in next. That's how it always worked. England and France and who better to witness this miserable dance? He smiled crookedly at America, lopsided, casual but he knew exactly where this was going when the other nation struggled to recover and he crossed the distance between the two of them knowing there was only one way to get this idiot's attention and Austria better make him that fucking _kaiserschmarrn _for this. _Blitzkrieg…. _yeah that was it then._

"_H-hey Gilbert what are you?-"_

"_Just shut up and kiss me."_

The two of them start back to the castle, both sparing a glance for the third box they're forced to leave behind. They'll have to come back for it.

Notes:

I honestly don't know how many years they've had a Christmas market at the Hohenzollern Castle. I can't find it online and haven't heard back from the inquiry I sent to the contact on the website. If anyone knows that'd be great.

Operation Tannenburg was the code name for an operation which saw the annihilation of 61,000 Polish targets namely activists, scholars, actors, etc in September 1939

The unit Prussia refers to is part of the _einsatzgruppen_. They were one of the primary paramilitary death squads responsible for carrying out mass exterminations on behalf of Nazi Germany. The unit in question is _Ordnungspolizei_ unit 101 which was involved in the operation in September 1939 however at the time Prussia is recalling having inspected them, the unit had since been replaced with mostly middle age transfers who were generally not fit for other service (December 1939)

Georg Friedrich is the current head of the Hohenzollern royal family. The Hohenzollern's are the ruling family of the kingdom of Prussia.

The television show being referenced is Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

The "breakup" Prussia refers to occurred during America's support of the 1967-1974 military coup in Greece as well as support of the monarchy on the Greek Civil war in the 1940s. Bill Clinton summer it up well in an apology issued in 1999 when he said "When the junta took over in 1967 here, the United States allowed its interests in prosecuting the Cold War to prevail over its interests - I should say its obligation - to support democracy, which was, after all, the cause for which we fought the Cold War. It is important that we acknowledge that." American/Greek relations were very strained as a result.

_kaiserschmarrn_ is a well known Austrian dessert. It's a type of light caramelized pancake made with sweet batter.


	6. King's Gambit

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or any of its characters. I'm also not making any money off of this.

Note: Many thanks to my beta Jazz E. Roislin for helping me coherently express myself. In this chapter a warning for offensive language and ideology. C&C is always welcome.

6

"King's Gambit"

_I used to rule the world._

_Seas would rise when I gave the word._

_Now in the morning I sleep alone._

_Sweep the streets I used to own."_

_-Coldplay "Viva la Vida"_

_Moscow, Russia_

_Russia's House_

_February, 1960_

"Read 'em and weep, suckers, full house." Prussia lays the cards down on the old wooden coffee table in the living room with a smug expression. Seated on the faded violet sofa across from him, Estonia's expression is unusually calm as Prussia's arms encircle the slugs they've been playing for.

"Hmm… yes you do seem to have a decent hand," he says at last. Seated next to him, Latvia looks somewhat suspect, and Lithuania exchanges a glance with the others as well. "But I believe that four aces are better." He lays down the aces and Prussia swears that he sees him smirk.

"What?! You fucking cheater; how in the hell do you have four of a fucking kind?!"

He's on his feet in an instant unable to believe what he's looking at. He'd gone all in convinced he was going to win and now-

"It's simple mathematics," Estonia replies pushing his glasses up his nose. "And arrogance on your part." He calmly pulls the pile of slugs towards him, leaving Prussia with nothing. On either side of him, Lithuania and Latvia each hold a mere pittance; but it's enough. He's lost.

"You little sneaks!" He realizes now that was their game all along. They played him perfectly, none of them looking the slightest bit repentant over it.

"You lost, Gilbert," Lithuania replies with a steel he never shows around Russia. "You're the one sleeping with him tonight, not any of us."

"You cheated. You had to have cheated. You stupid little girls don't even know how to fucking play poker!" Estonia snorts, rising with the thin blanket around his shoulders.

"You assumed we didn't know how to play poker. You assumed you were going to take advantage of our 'naiveté'. Well, Gilbert, I guess you assumed wrong." he turned around and if Prussia wasn't so fucking sore from working in the damn factory all day he'd kick his ass. _Assumed nothing, you fucking pussy I'd bet my left nut one of you has power over games of chance._

"Ah... well I guess if you'd really been trying you'd have won," Latvia offers just rubbing more salt in the wound and Prussia feels his right eye twitch. He _had_ been trying that last hand; that was the fucking kicker of it. No wonder Russia likes to press on Latvia's fucking head. He smiles and ruffles the little asshole's hair: hard.

"Haha, yeah. Of course I'd have won if I hadn't underestimated you little pansies. Next time... next time you better watch out."

Next time he'll just tell them all to go fuck themselves because he doesn't care how long they've played this stupid game- this stupid "taking turns" bullshit. He's not sleeping with that crazy sonofabitch again and he's sure he's strong enough to take on the three of them at once. When they take their leave, leaving him alone with the mess and the last of the vodka, Prussia allows himself to shiver. _Christ, the fucking castle was warmer than this._ He grabs the bottle and takes a swig straight from it allowing the warmth of the alcohol to fill him. It's always freezing in the house in the winter. _Well shit if I had four handy bed warmers I'd keep it cold as a witch's tit in here too._

As he puts away the cards and the metal slugs he consoles himself with the knowledge that it'll be the three of them going outside tomorrow for bread; he hopes it fucking snows. Prussia dares a look at the clock knowing that there won't be any more stalling before bed. He'll need all the rest he can get any way to work tomorrow and fuck his hands feel as if they'll never get used to sorting the damn pieces into the boxes. He absently fingers the iron cross around his neck whispering softly, "and he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers..." The scar over his heart hurts the most in the cold and he wonders why Russia of all people had saved him.

* * *

"_This is going to hurt," Russia said as he held the gun to his chest. The bastard looked far too cheerful when he said that. "But you already know that, don't you?"_

"_Y'know, Ivan, drawing it out like a fucking interrogation doesn't exactly help," Prussia answered through a tight jaw gritting his teeth. "Would it kill you to give me a towel to bite? Last time this happened I almost bit my tongue off." And his bosses almost shit themselves when he sat up in the back of the car and wrenched the bullet out with his fingers but he didn't want to think about that any more._

"_No towel!" that cheerful childlike tone was unnerving him far more that the cold metal pressed to his bare chest. "I've never seen this before. I don't want to dull the experience." Prussia swore at him silently and closed his eyes steeling himself. _

_He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt the barrel at his back instead._

"_Hmm... would it be better if I shot you in the back?" he asked thoughtfully and Prussia was tempted to grab the gun and just do it himself after all. He didn't answer him. He was only asking Russia because it was easier; he wasn't scared he just didn't want to risk missing or something. The last two times just happened to be unexpected so he couldn't do it himself. And Christ if he wanted to survive he needed to become East Germany and the only way he could do it was to die and be reborn in this moment when the window was open: with a shot through the heart while he knew they were finalizing the territory of the eastern bloc. But doing it this way produced another interesting effect he realized, than sitting in Russia's bathroom waiting for the fucker to pull the damn trigger. The sense of dread was kicking his body into a hyper aware state but at least it'd be over faster with the way his heart was pumping. _

_Right now he was standing naked in the fucking bathtub because apparently the three little concubines or what the fuck ever Russia was calling the Baltic States nowadays said they wouldn't clean his blood off the floor. Fucking beautiful time for them to decide to take a stand on something._

_His eyes snapped open when he felt Russia tapping the barrel to his dick. _

"_What the fuck, you-"_

"_You must be scared for it to be this tiny," he said with a titter and Prussia almost hauled off and punched him._

"_It's fucking cold in here, Ivan," he growled. "Are you gonna do it already or are you gonna stand there smacking my dick around like a goddamn homo?"_

"_You didn't answer me," Russia replied singsong ignoring the slur. "Shall I do it from the front, or shall I take you from behind?" He giggled._

_Prussia glared, not finding the last bit nearly as funny as Russia did. "It doesn't matter where you fucking do it Ivan, just make sure it goes through my heart 'cause if you hit something else instead I don't-" Somehow he hadn't heard the sound of the gun going off as Russia pulled the trigger. The distraction had been a small and unusual mercy that kept him from thinking too hard about what was about to happen right up until that moment. He looked at the splatter on the wall in front of him and the hole where the bullet had entered. Figures that fucker would shoot him in the back like a goddamn animal. _

_It felt like lead when he brought his hand up instinctually to the wound to stop the bleeding and it hurt. God did it hurt and he could feel himself dying but it wasn't fast enough because fuck no matter how many times this happened he'd never get used to it and he sure as hell wasn't gonna look up and see that creepy bug eyed fucker staring at him like an ant beneath a magnifying glass. He could feel the warm blood spilling through his fingers and down his stomach but it was hard to focus on anything but the blinding pain even as his legs gave out and he felt himself falling. He didn't feel himself hit the ground, and even as the endorphins released and he felt weightless and sleepy he somehow felt arms around him and a soft voice singing to him. She had sang to him too the first time he "died". _

"_Баю-баюшки-баю..." The world spun and in that moment he almost thought it would be okay to fall into the blessed darkness and see if he would truly be forgiven. "Не ложися на краю." The hands on his face were oddly cold, but somehow he still found comfort in them. Bleeding out, he couldn't hear or feel the beat of his heart but somehow he still felt a heartbeat against his cheek. "Придёт серенький волчок." His eyes were closed and without breath he felt the rise and fall of someone's chest as he lay back, cradled against warmth where his legs spread out on the cold porcelain of the tub. "Он ухватит за бочок." That voice was faint, as if it were a thousand miles away as the soft lullaby finished, and he let the darkness overtake him. "И утащит во лесок. Под ракитовый кусток."_

* * *

Prussia sighs as he makes his way up the stairs and down the endless hall of the old house shivering at the memory in spite of himself. He was half dead or unconscious when Russia breathed life into him but somehow he can still recall the other's lips tasted of far less vodka than he'd imagined. If there was one thing that Russia had the decency never to mention was that final moment. Prussia blinks, only now realizing he'd brought his fingers to his lips. "_So how stupid is the man who is unaware of his own immortality?" _Somehow he remembers Russia's words to him as he awoke and he realized in the moment, that all four of them stared at him lying in bed, that they all had expected him to die. So then it was only him after all with such power.

He flexes his hands absently as he feels the ache in his joints from the cold. "_You're gonna be waiting a helluva lot longer than that, assholes." _The floor creaks beneath his feet and he sees the doors stretch out like a dozen different fates. It's not such an unpleasant thought when he imagines himself as some mighty king visiting his favorite concubine instead of a fallen empire going to warm the bed of his conqueror like a fucking whore. Immortal. God. Fuck lot of good it did him. _Maybe Ivan'll drink himself into a dead sleep and do me a favor tonight_.

He doesn't knock. He opens the door and looks surprised when he sees the fireplace is actually going.

"Ivan?" He enters cautiously, closing the door behind him. His eyes scan the vast chamber. He remembers a lifetime ago that it used to be decorated with fine baroque furniture, elegantly carved, with velvet cushions. The same old tapestries still hang on the walls, though they've faded like the rest of the room. He sees Russia sitting on the large antique sofa and feels his heart skip a beat in surprise. He sees Belarus next to him eating one of the sweet rolls that Lithuania had baked.

Something feels off about the scene, as he takes a few steps and narrows his eyes in observation. Her hair is just a touch too blonde, and instead of looking shit fucking died terrified, Russia has some odd faraway look on his face as he drinks the alcohol and watches her eat.

"Ah, Gilbert. I would've gotten someone for you, but it was Liet's night so..." he shrugs not looking particularly apologetic. Prussia - hardly wanting a repeat of the last time Russia "got someone" for him - also sees an opportunity to put Lithuania in his place and turns to leave.

"Oh well shit if he's what you need to make it a party I can go get him."

"No, that won't be necessary..." Prussia swallows at that, figuring it was far too simple. And wouldn't it just be his luck if Russia had someone waiting in his room anyway.

* * *

_Prussia's first reaction upon seeing her was to laugh. And as he watched her shadowed countenance change from a dignified resignation to anger even he could see why she still hated him so._

"_Oh fuck… you look… you look like a fucking whore…" He only glanced at her briefly when he opened the door to his sparse room but even the faint glimpse of her painted face and body hidden beneath a long belted trenchcoat was enough and she'd crossed the scant distance between them in that time. Ages ago she might have drawn a sword and run him through; but all the years she'd spent with Austria must've made her weak because she just stormed past him to the door without a word. He caught her wrist even as he'd nearly doubled over with his guffaws. It seems he wasn't the only one who Russia had taken._

"_Let go," was said through gritted teeth and he smiled at her even as he sat on the bed and complied. _

"_I shoulda made you sit on my lap, _schlampe," _he said lightly as he fished in the drawer of the nightstand for a cigarette. Hungary glared at him before taking a seat on an old green velvet chair next to the bed not bothering to wipe the dust off. She sat back and snorted._

"_You're supposed to smoke after sex, not before, stupid…" Her arms were crossed with a distant frown on her face. "But I wouldn't expect you to know anything about making love to a woman." He didn't rise to the bait, turning to face her as he lit the cigarette. _

"_Pfah, like a guy could get it up for a cow like you." Hungary tensed for just a moment but instead busied herself looking at the newspapers on the small table. _

"_Why are you here anyway? Ivan too busy plowing one of those little girls to pay you any attention? You wanna talk about a guy who couldn't get it up for a woman if his fucking life depended on it…" _

_Somehow the more he talked the more she relaxed and as he took another drag on the cigarette she leaned in holding out a hand expectantly. _

"_C'mon, Gilbert, tit for tat. Those are hard to come by nowadays. Besides, I'm your guest, not Ivan's." And he thought Russia had said something like a surprise waiting and he wondered what game the asshole was playing at. Russia had to know... _

"_So you're here for me, huh?" He fished another out and tossed it to her along with the lighter. "Hey stupid. I lost too, remember. The eastern bloc is just as fucked as this shit hole if not more-so. Here for me shit, I-"_

"_Just be quiet and listen for once you jackass." She lit the cigarette taking a deep angry puff. "Or how about you answer a question from me and maybe you'll get your stupid answer." Hungary looked out the window. "Ivan hasn't…" She sighed, seemed to consider the false start and proceeded with an unusual hesitation. It seemed as if she were changing the subject. "He hasn't…" She seemed to be looking for a particular confirmation of something. "Not like with the others… he isn't like that with you, is he?" And he was about to tell her to fuck off for even thinking that he'd let Russia have him like that when her demeanor gave him pause._

_He stopped and looked at her curiously, raising an eyebrow as he started unbuttoning his shirt. The action gave him more time to think and he could feel her eyes on him. 'So the four-eyed devil made another fucking deal didn't he?' No... not Austria himself but-_

"_Don't get any weird ideas. I wouldn't stick my dick in that for a whole carton of fucking smokes." Prussia changes the subject, unnerved by the intensity of Hungary's stare._

"_I don't know why I even bother talking to you, asshole." _

"_Yeah well, it looks like I'm stuck with you til Ivan sends you the fuck home so you might as well suck it up." He looked down, the ash falling between his spread legs to the floor as she shrugged the shirt off. Maybe he'd get lucky enough to burn the motherfucker down one of these days. "Don't go getting your panties all wet over there." He want to answer her question. He wanted to ask her why the hell she was asking him weird shit like that when they all had a lot more important things to worry about when he thought he heard something like a scream or whatever it was. No… no Russia hadn't… not like that… _

"_It's none of your fucking business" was said at the same time as "don't flatter yourself." Hungary sighed and started unbuttoning the raincoat, letting the barely touched cigarette rest on the side of the ashtray and Prussia stood deliberately facing away from her. _

"_It looks like Roderich has made his choice then," was all she offered and Prussia made a ttch of irritation. She didn't know what the fuck she was talking about. She had no idea what happened at their final meeting and all the shit between the war and now and he'd be damned if he ever told her. It seemed that Austria had decided a lot of things._

"_Ch', specs fucks over everyone in this whole fucking war and everyone's still got a fucking hard on for him. What about me, eh?" _

"_What about you?" He kicked his shoes off as he heard her rustling around behind him. "You're a dead nation and an asshole to boot." He pulled out a faded woolen shirt from the top dresser drawer and threw it behind him chuckling at that one. Looks like he wasn't the only one who still harbored a grudge. _

"_I'm alive, ain't I? The royal family's alive. S'all that matters right now. Yeah fine, fuck world conquest, fuck that little bitch, and fuck you. I'm a helluva lot stronger than you ever thought I'd be bitch, so why don't you shut up and put that on cause the last thing I want to see is your tits flopping all over the place." He changed into a loose fitting pair of pants and could hear her behind him muttering something and as she was silent and he turned the small envelope caught him square in the face._

_He looked down at the plan unmarked paper and yet somehow he already knew who it was from._

"_I don't want this shit." Hungary adjusted the long shirt and there was something about the odd shapelessness of the garment that made him remember the days when he still thought that she was a he and when she turned around there was an odd feeling in his stomach he looked quickly back down at the envelope. _

"_Read it or burn it. I don't care and since you know who it's from you know why I don't care." Her voice was soft and bitter and when she asked him for a ribbon he turned the envelope over and dug some spare set of shoelaces from the nightstand. It was far easier to talk once Hungary had pulled her hair back and there was a small tension that relaxed in his shoulders._

"_This ain't the Bayerischer hof, asshole, and what kinda bellhop do I look like?" He set them down and ignored her as she left to the bathroom saying she was going to wash her face._

_It was simple and he knew the elegant script. Prussia stared at the line as he took a seat on the bed absently flicking ash into the cigarette wondering what on earth it was supposed to mean and he searched and thought about all the things he'd indexed in his brain over the years but for now he couldn't guess at it. He frowned, turning the paper over before folding it back and carefully putting the envelope away. _

_Leave it to a fucking woman to speak in such nonsense, he thought as he took the iron cross around his neck in his hand and kissed the slightly warm metal out of habit. So this was what it was like to be one of the highest stars in heaven, was it? Was it to be separated, to be isolated, to be held on a pedestal beyond human reach and human contact? Was that what it truly meant to be a god? And he looked down at his own hands which were still so young until he turned them over and saw the scars on the back and he traced his thumb over the deepest one running nearly parallel to the darkest vein. So she had made her decision too, had she? _

_He felt the weight on the bed and swore to himself 'cause he really didn't think he'd been sitting on the bed that long. Hungary didn't say anything for awhile and for that he was thankful. He might never be friends with the woman she'd become but as for the man she once fancied herself..._

"_You're an idiot Gilbert." And somehow even the affectation of her voice was different now and it made it easier to look at her with familiarity. _

"_Yeah well you're here in this shithole right along with me so I don't wanna fucking hear it." He took another drag, deeply, feeling the sharp sting to his throat even after all these years and it made him close his eyes and savor it._

"_Feliks is waiting for me, you know." She offered as she settled in and he supposed she'd at least be here the night. She didn't ask to lay with him but it wasn't as if the two of them had never shared a bed before as comrades._

"_Yeah, figures," was all he said before putting out the half smoked cigarette and turning off the light next to the bed. "So aren't you supposed to be here making nice with Ivan the Terrible? He probably fucking broke Raivis again and I'm sure you're a lot more used to enemy dick anyway." He could feel her shrug and it felt oddly nice to be next to someone warm and familiar in the middle of all this mess._

"_We all did what we had to do. You know I've never completely trusted Roderich and I was right, wasn't I?" And he couldn't help but smile at that because it was nice having her on her knees in front of him when they gave it to the bitch for betraying them. Fucking Eichmann turned out to be good for something after all._

"_So you broke in Alfred real good, huh?" She laughed at that and looked at him looking far more like her younger self in the darkness. _

"_If you think I'm gonna give you all the details about 'enemy dick', asshole you'll just have to get your own hands dirty." And she held up a hand before he could protest, a finger to his lips and a wicked smile that came with all the secrets they used to share._

"_Ahh but Elizaveta Hedervary is a lady and doesn't do things like that." He didn't know why that made him feel a strange sense of relief but it did as did her touch. But he couldn't read her, he hadn't been able to do that in centuries and he was about to swat her hand away when she moved it on her own. "But as for me well..." She looked at him with an intensity that was unnerving, looking at his hair, reaching out, brushing bangs to the side. "But if Elizaveta Hedervary really was a man..." _

"_I'm not a fucking queer..." he answered automatically making no move to move her hand._

"_No... no you wouldn't be, would you? But let's say, Gil... let's say for the sake of dead dreams and fallen gods... that I do you a kindness you'd never do for me." She let her fingers trail down his neck, over his shoulder and down his bicep eyes following her own path, never looking him full in the face._

"_Let's say then, old friend, that for tonight…"She pulled her hand back looking at him, through him, wherever the fuck she was looking cause he didn't look away from her for a second. "Doubt thou the starts are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar. But never doubt that I…" She looked over at the large wooden armoire as if he were no longer there speaking so softly it was as if she were mouthing the words. "…that I love."_

_And he thought of the letter just as she trailed off with an oddly bitter twist to her mouth. Her eyes fell shut as if in sleep or death and he thought of the screams and of Russia down the hall and wondered if this was hell. And he didn't know why it was he that leaned in until he didn't know where his breath ended and hers began and he didn't let himself wonder about what ifs and only considered the words. _

'_But never doubt that I love... '_

_And he heard Russia again and let his head rest against her forehead and wonder if she knew there was more than one way to read that damn line._

* * *

He almost expects to see fucking Hungary again but no Russia did say after all that he was expecting Lithuania. And Russia hasn't taken his eyes off of the woman on the couch and yet she seems accustomed to the discomfiting stare. He leans in and whispers something to her softly in Russian that Prussia barely hears; he doesn't try and understand it. He walks slowly- further into the room with a curious expression. _Fuck, shit around here just keeps getting weirder and weirder._

"So Ivan, if you have a fucking bed warmer already..."

"Natalya won't be staying," Russia answers, his hands reaching up and ghosting over her skin as if she might disappear from too strong a touch. The girls responds to the name as if it were truly her own. "If Liet isn't here to watch... it's not any fun," he says mostly to himself. Prussia quirks an eyebrow but remains silent; he's learned to pick and choose his battles where Russia is concerned.

While Russia trails his lips over the girl's hair showing no sign of sending her home soon, Prussia decides he might as well keep busy until the other is actually ready to go to bed. The novel he'd begun last week still sits on the nightstand next to the massive bed when he enters Russia's adjoining bedchamber. There's something he finds unnerving about that even as he picks up the old hardcover, fingers carefully running along the priceless first edition copy signed by Dostoevsky himself. "The House of the Dead" called to him at first merely by its title but he finds the descriptions to be personally haunting.

He settles down on the bed, legs crossed, propped on a pillow leaning back against the ornately carved headboard and begins reading. Learning the language had come easily to him as it always had, but he still pretends to finds it easier to pretend his audio understanding is poor. They always underestimate his intellect, and as he reads, engrossed in the novel, his mind compartmentalizes, an entirely different series of impulses firing off as he debates the best way to get that four eyed egghead back for tonight. Something juvenile... something completely expected, executed in such a manner that he won't. It makes Prussia smile even as the doors open and close and the heavy boots fall on the hard floor. A glance to the wall clock reveals that it's barely been twenty minutes.

He looks up over the edges of the novel as Russia sits on the edge of the bed and leans forward to unlace his boots. Prussia has no idea how his pupils dilate slightly as he watches the movement of those broad shoulders.

"Y'know, Ivan," he begins, book already forgotten, "if I was paying for it, I sure as hell woulda taken my damn time." Russia doesn't look at him as he toes the boots off and removes the heavy sweater.

"She isn't a whore."

"You gonna tell me that was your sister? 'Cause there's no way in hell that crazy bitch- Christ!" He throws himself to the side the old reflexes still solid. The headboard cracks with the impact of the hard boot and Prussia hits the floor with a curse. Russia's face is already hovering over the edge of the bed, that damn creepy smile pasted on.

"Rule number three, remember?" Before he can acknowledge the "Belarus is a sweet girl not a crazy bitch rule", Russia is already going back to his task of changing for the evening and Prussia sets about righting himself and retrieving the book. He's annoyed enough to debate having a go at the big bastard but stops and watches as Russia removes the white undershirt showing a seemingly endless expanse of scarred, pale skin. The scarf stays on and Latvia swears that Russia can't remove it without his head falling off. But Prussia is finding out the three Baltics- or the three little sissies as he calls them- are damn good at lies and misdirection.

Prussia brings the book back up as he resettles himself and his eyes unconsciously fall over the edge of the cover to watch as Russia stands and unbuttons his pants. America made some sort of obnoxious dig about his weight during one of the meetings they had after the war, but seeing the half-naked form, it's clear that America's never seen him undressed. Russia is nothing but raw muscle and power and Prussia can almost believe Lithuania's whispered declaration that he likes to wrestle fucking bears for fun. Those arms are damn strong. The fucker almost broke his spine the last time he suplexed him on the hard floor.

Prussia's eyes don't leave his body as he pads gracefully across the floor to the large mahogany chest of drawers and rifles through it for the pajamas that his older sister had given him last Christmas. Prussia shifts on the bed where he sits as Russia bends at the waist to open the bottom drawer and the white briefs stretch, pull taut over his ass and Prussia wonders absently if the bastard ever fucks the other members of the house.

"So how are you finding it?" Russia asks suddenly as he turns around and Prussia violently wrenches his eyes away from their staring.

"I wasn't fucking looking at you, asshole!" he answers furiously and Russia shoots him that damn fucking knowing expression deliberately delaying in putting the flannel on.

"I meant the book, Gilbert, but if you'd like to "not look" a little more, I can wait." Prussia fights down the urge to lunge at him, practically slamming down the volume with a snarl.

"Fuck you, pervert, put your fucking clothes on. I told you already I'm not a-"

"I know," Russia interrupts far too calmly as he slides the top over his shoulders. "You're a man's man, yes?" And the sonofabitch is deliberately baiting him when he runs his large hands over his hard pectorals while buttoning the fucking thing up. "You don't look over the edges of a book with lust in your eyes when I-"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Those damn violet eyes taunt him and he lays back looking at the ceiling furiously.

"You never did answer my fucking question, Ivan. Who the hell was that girl if she wasn't a whore? 'Cause she looked like Natalya's fucking twin." The mystery gives him something to refocus his attention on but he's already playing back Russia's mysterious comment about Lithuania his thoughts scattering to every odd little piece of this entire scenario. "And what did you mean it's not any fun without Toris here?" Prussia hates this damn house. He hates the lies, he hates the fucking secrets and most of all he hates having to lay here next to Russia 'cause the stunted motherfucker can't sleep by his fucking self.

Fully clothed, Russia lays back next to him his arms behind his head as he joins in the imaginary stargazing. The paint is peeling off of the high ceiling and it looks as if the sky is falling. He hears Russia's steady breathing and for a moment he thinks perhaps that the other's fallen asleep. The dim lamplight is still on and Prussia's about to turn it off so the shadows will stop casting on the tapestried walls when he hears Russia speaking softly.

"Svetlana is a girl who I met in Leningrad after her parents were taken…" he trails off sadly and Prussia hears him take a deep breath. "Well, you remember what it was like ten years ago."

_Christ, has it been that long already? _Oh yeah, he definitely remembers. It's hard to forget waiting in fucking line for a damn loaf of bread and that was even with the few privileges they'd been afforded above the rest. Yeah everyone was equal- some were just a little more equal than others.

"She was only seven then. She reminded me of Natalya… and she knew right away who I was so I took her back with me and found a place for her to live." He shifts and his voice is strained. "She visits sometimes… she used to call me brother… and two years ago she kissed me very much not like a brother." His voice trembles and somehow Prussia can even sense the other's hands trembling as well.

"You're a real prince, y'know that, Ivan?" He snorts and rolls over, back to the larger nation. "I'm surprised you waited that long." Russia is tense and his voice is strained, he sounds almost as if he can't breath. Prussia doesn't see him close his eyes and try desperately to hold on to a memory that he wishes he could bury.

"That's funny- _you_ moralizing to _me_. I know if I ask you Gilbert, you won't tell me the truth... you don't lie much to others but you lie to yourself so much you don't even realize it. But I know that you know... what it feels like to lay with one who is like yourself." He speaks in riddles, and in that moment it occurs to Prussia that there really is no safe haven where every wall has ears and every shadow has eyes.

"I told you fuckers when you tried to crucify us at Nuremburg that shit isn't any of your fucking business," he answers tersely feeling as if time has somehow stopped. "And I told you that even if you string the lot of us up and let us watch each other burn I wouldn't give you the satisfaction, so don't you dare lay there and act like-"

"Like one who also knows... I have a lot of scars, Gilbert. Some are from war and others… what did you say… none of your fucking business, right?" He plays with the doll.

"What?!" He sits up ramrod straight and looks over to where Russia has his eyes focused intently on the doll.

"It's too dangerous, Gilbert. You know that now. And you know if they ever dare suspect..." he doesn't finish the sentence. Some horrors are best left unspoken so they can die out in the dark. "And yet... I know that you know... that once you taste that... once you eat from that forbidden tree, that everything else tastes like dirt and turns to ash in your mouth."

Russia turns away from him then leaving him to continue to map the heavens on the decaying ceiling. His sleeping body will cling to Prussia desperately in slumber but for now he faces the wall and speaks softly in the hallowed silence.

"Toris will never have my sister. I'll never let him forget that. Whatever it takes to make him stop wanting, I'll do it. BUt you would do well to remember too, Gilbert. If I can't have what I want- then no one can."

Prussia snorts. "…real fucking prince…" he mutters again but then he thinks oddly of North Italy in that moment hanging all over his brother's dick without him there and his chest does an odd double thump. He thinks of the night that Spain wed Austria in that ridiculously overdone ceremony he had to watch and he swallows a lump of bile as that traitorous sonofabitch later fastened that necklace around _her_ neck as a wedding gift. He fingers the iron cross around his own neck absently. Russia doesn't know what he's talking about. Russia might be some sick sister loving sinner but he's not- He almost jumps out of his skin when he realizes that Russia has actually turned back to face him. He blinks and stares and Russia merely stares back as if searching for something.

"Do you fear the fire… Gilbert?" He whispers softly, childlike, and Prussia hears more than feels the wind blowing the loose shutters through the broken out hastily repaired glass of the window. He doesn't answer him exactly, just watching and waiting and Russia seems to be staring at the cross now.

Prussia looks away with a curse as he lets go of it. Fucking creepy...

"Like I'm gonna answer your stupid-"

"You shouldn't." And now it's Prussia's turn to face violently away because he doesn't hear this. He doesn't hear this and doesn't think about it because he hasn't done a fucking thing wrong.

"Dammit Ivan, go to fucking sleep already," he whispers wondering why the hell his voice is trembling. Fucking Baltic states and their cheating… Prussia tenses when he hears Russia again straining to hear in spite of himself. "The fire...death... is nothing compared to the never ending winter."

Notes:

The song Russia sings is an old lullaby that translates as:

Baby, baby, rock-a-bye

On the edge you mustn't lie

Or the little grey wolf will come

And will nip you on the tum,

Tug you off into the wood

Underneath the willow-root.

The Bayerischer Hof is a luxury hotel in Munich. In 1924 it was the largest hotel in Europe.

Eichmann refers to Adolph Eichmann, a prominent Nazi SS lieutenant colonel who was responsible for (among many other things) the deportation and extermination of Hungary's jewish population. His trial in 1962 cemented the concept of the "desk murderer".

Dostoevksy was a famous Russian author more known for "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov" than the book in question. "The House of the Dead" is about a man sentenced to serve ten years hard labor in Siberia and describes a great spiritual reawakening.

"Ten years ago" refers to the period in Russian History when Stalin was still alive and ruling the then Soviet Union.


End file.
